The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew: The Gargoyles of Harrison
by ptaernblueshark
Summary: Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are asked to determine the causes of strange accidents happening at the prestigious T.J. Harrison Boarding School in Maine due to lawsuit threats after a chandelier nearly kills students. The three will have to use every ounce of courage, brains, and strength to uncover the secrets... and survive the deadly plights awaiting them!
1. An Invitation

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** This is my first fanfiction ever. I hope you all enjoy. My hope is for this to turn into a full novel size, but if the interest isn't there, I'll probably stop. The setting is similar to that of the Nancy Drew game, _Warnings at Waverly Academy_ , but characters, crimes, motives, etc. are different. Basically, it revolves around a prestigious school, but that is the only major similarity between the two.

Frank entered the doorway just as something whizzed by his head. Ducking back into the hallway, he sighed.

"Joe, if you're going to throw pencils, at least throw them away from the door. You have three other walls which are better targets than the one with the door."

"I wouldn't throw it if Calculus wasn't so damn annoying," Frank heard Joe mutter. Assuming the doorway would be clear of flying objects, Frank quickly ducked into his brothers room.

His blond brother sat facing the wall at his desk, poring over a textbook. Several pencils were scattered at Frank's feet, which he picked up one by one before carrying them over to restock Joe's desk.

"You're smart. What the hell does this symbol mean?"

"Joseph Hardy, watch your mouth." Frank smirked as their mother passed by in the hallway before taking a look at what his brother was pointing to.

"You know, typically a teacher tells you how to do the problems they assign for homework. Have you ever heard of paying attention?" Frank knew exactly what the symbol meant, but he wasn't going to let his brother off without a hard time.

"Dude, you took a class with Old Linda. It's not like I would've learned anything even if I had been paying attention." Joe flopped over the side of the desk, looking to his elder brother as he sighed.

Frank, feeling sorry for the torment his brother was enduring, was about to explain what to do when his pocket buzzed.

Joe glared at him. "Don't you dare answer that phone."

Rolling his eyes, Frank took his cell out to look at the caller ID. Nancy. "Sorry bro, it's Nancy," he explained. He took the call and stepped out of Joe's room just as his brother let out a rather loud groan. "Hey Nancy, what's up?"

"Hi Frank. Is everything okay there? What's that noise?"  
Frank laughed as he explained, "It's the sound Joe makes when I have to take a well-timed phone call just as I'm about to literally solve all his problems in Calculus." He could hear her rolling her eyes like he did.

"Well, I'd suggest you get somewhere away from Joe so we can talk more privately. Unless your homework isn't done either, mister. Although I suppose that may not matter."

Frank was completely lost as he entered his own bedroom. "Slow down. Yes, I'm away from Joe. And yes, my homework is done. And it wouldn't matter why?"

Nancy started, "Yesterday I got a call from a Suzanne King. She's the Dean of a prominent boarding school up in Maine. The T.J. Harrison Boarding School. Have you heard of it?"

Frank raised his eyebrows. "Who hasn't? What did she say? Were they trying to recruit you to the school?"

"No," Nancy laughed. "Well, not exactly. Recently they've been having some weird happenings. It began as small stuff, she said, things like a power outage on a beautiful day, a rabbit appearing in a desk when the room was locked. But things started to escalate, and it all took a turn for the worse when a chandelier came down in the main lobby. Luckily no one was killed but one of the kids had his leg broken by it and several others had minor injuries from the flying shards of glass. The semester just started and not only did the last 'accident' bring families to the verge of suing the school, enrollment is down 30% from the previous semester."

Frank set down his pen and looked at the scribbles he had made. "That chandelier business is pretty extreme."

"And there were signs of someone tampering with it," Nancy added. Frank jotted the extra fact down as Nancy continued, "Dean King wants me to take the role of a student to figure out who is behind all this and why someone is doing these things."

Frank nodded slowly, "Do you think it could be pranks gone wrong?"

"Dean King doesn't seem to think so. At any rate, it's pretty snowy up there, but I'm planning on moving in this upcoming weekend. I let her know that I had a couple other private investigators who might be able to help me on the case."

"And would those private investigators be Joe and me?" Frank could hardly contain his excitement. Here was his opportunity to be admitted to one of the top boarding schools in the country.

"No, I was going to invite Sherlock Holmes and Thomas Magnum, but I suppose you and Joe will do," Nancy replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Of course, I don't know whether your parents or teachers would allow you..."

Frank quickly chimed in. "Parents won't be a problem. Mom would be excited that we were recruited to such a big-name school, and we could probably tell Dad what's going on. As for teachers, they'd probably be excited for us, but how do we explain going for a couple weeks and then coming back?"

"Well, you could always say that you guys got kicked out because you weren't smart enough," Nancy joked, "But we don't even know how long this is going to take."

Frank said, "True. Maybe Dad will have some better ideas. Let me talk to him and Joe once he finishes his Calc and then I'll call you back." Saying goodbye, he hung up the phone before heading out in search of his father. After checking his study, the kitchen, and the bedroom, Frank decided to check the garage. Opening the door, he saw an empty garage. "Damn, he must be out at the station or something." Re-entering the house he saw his mother coming down the stairs. "Hey Mom, did Dad head out somewhere?"

Laura Hardy nodded. "He was called down to the police station, but he said it wouldn't take too long."

"Well, we have different standards of time," Frank said under his breath. "What's for dinner?"

"Well, your father was supposed to grill, but he should've started by now," Laura sighed.

Frank took that as his cue. "I'm done with my homework. I can get it going if you want. What are we grilling?"

His mother beamed at him. "What would I do without my two lovely boys?" She marched to the fridge and took out four burger patties. "One for each of us. I'll find out what type of cheese Joe wants when I pass his room. How's his homework going? And how's your homework?"

"My homework is done. As for Joe," he laughed, "I got a call from a V.I.P. before I got the chance to help him out. He's probably no further along than he was when I left him."

"Well, make sure he gets that done," his mother said. "And don't just give him answers."

"Mom, I wouldn't do that for anyone. You know how I am when it comes to helping other people with homework," Frank replied.

His mother asked, "Who was this 'V.I.P.' who you got a call from?"

Frank weighed his choices before speaking. "Well, it was Dean Suzanne King. The head of the T.J. Harrison Boarding School. She was interested in possibly having Joe and I enroll in the school for a semester."

This drew a gasp from his mother. "Frank Hardy, that is wonderful news! Maybe more for Joe than you, considering you've already been accepted into college, but this will look outstanding on your résumés!" Laura was absolutely gushing, a response Frank was not expecting. He saved himself from the momentary confusion by looking at his watch.

"I'm glad you're excited. We can talk more about it over dinner tonight. Joe still doesn't know, but I should get these burgers on the grill."

"Oh, I'll go let him know." Before Frank could protest his mother was already headed up the stairs. Sighing, he turned to grab dinner and brought it out to the porch.

At dinner it was hard to keep the buzz of excitement down from their mother. Joe looked at him questioningly for most of the meal, a look that was caught by their father. Once the eating had finished Joe left to finish his homework while Laura went to fold the laundry, leaving Frank and his father, Fenton, in the kitchen to wash and dry the dishes.

"So, would you happen to know why you two happened to get recruited to this school halfway through the school year with no prior warning?" Fenton asked. "And why the dean herself found it necessary to call you?"

Frank turned to him while he washed off a plate. "It wasn't actually Mrs. King who called me. It was Nancy. She's been asked to investigate some accidents at the boarding school after the last one left a kid with a broken leg."

Fenton looked at him quizzically. "Explain why you are going then. After all, it sounds like this is Nancy's case."

"She invited us in, and the dean accepted," Frank replied. "Here's how I see it: Joe and I will get to solve a mystery with Nancy while getting the best education available in the country at a top boarding school which also happens to have a good athletic program."

"Just keep in mind," Fenton said, "that while Dean King knows why you would be there, other teachers might not. You'll be pretty deep undercover, so those grades will need to stay in tip-top shape. Since you won't be here in Bayport, those grades you pull will count for however long you are there." His father paused for a moment. "Say that you solve this case. Maybe it takes the whole semester, maybe not. Will you both stay up there for the whole semester? Your mother and I might be fine with it, but that would be a long time away from your friends, and you wouldn't get to graduate down here."

Frank put the glasses in the cabinet as he thought. "I don't know. It would be awesome to stay there, but at the same time, you have a point. I don't see any reason why Joe wouldn't stay, but I guess I'll have to see what it's like."

Once everything was put away, Frank bounded up the stairs two at a time. Taking a right he walked a few feet and took a left into Joe's room.

"Are you still on the same problem I left you on?" Frank joked, earning a pencil thrown at him.

"No. Well, sort of. I just skipped that whole group of problems, but they're the only ones left. You couldn't have shown up at a better time." Joe turned to face him. "Help me out, because the sooner we get this done, the sooner you get to tell me about to call from Suzanne King that never happened."

"That's Dean King to you. Or will be pretty soon," Frank said sternly, eyes twinkling. "Now, how many questions do you have left?"

"Six."

Frank walked over to the desk, now lit by a lamp. He hated how early it got dark during the winter. "Alright, let's crank these out." (1856)

I hope you all liked this. I have a basic storyline planned but I can't give an exact schedule for when the next chapter will be out. My schedule is pretty busy from now through the first week of June or so. The writing process may slow down a bit, but please take a few moments to let me know your thoughts. Any compliments, pieces of advice, or criticisms (to an extent) are greatly appreciated, especially since I've never written fanfiction before! Thank you in advance!


	2. A Queen

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** Hi all! Here is Chapter 2, and I'm so excited to begin exploring the T.J. Harrison Boarding school with you. I actually have a map of the buildings drawn out and I'm looking forward to introducing you all to every place. I'm so happy that so many people have read the first chapter and that they found it to be a good start. I was astonished to see the wide range of countries the people who read the first chapter were from, including Belgium, Malaysia, Singapore, and so many more. All in all 13 countries and territories were represented. I hope all of you who read it the start to this story find the following chapter just as interesting.

After lying on her new yet surprisingly comfortable bed, Nancy decided that perhaps doing actual work would be a good idea. It was a Sunday, and her roommate still hadn't returned from her day trip. As she heaved herself off the bed in the dorm room, Nancy debated the pros and cons of living with a suspect. For one thing she would get to know her roommate pretty well, but did she really want to be sleeping in the same room? Shuddering at the thought of sleeping in the same room as some of the past criminals she had encountered, Nancy exited into the hallway. The dorm was quiet with most of the girls at various shops downtown.

Stepping outside the senior immediately was blasted with cold air. Quickly stepping through the snow, Nancy made her way to the path leading to the administration building. She had already let the dean know about her arrival but still hadn't stopped by to talk to her.

Nancy gratefully stepped into the heated building. It was a quaint yet grand setup. Looking above her, Nancy could see the faint outline on the ceiling a floor above where the chandelier had been attached. Through a set of glass doors to her right Nancy could see the Olympic-sized swimming pool and, further in, the hot tub, complete with a mini waterfall.

"You can go in and take a swim if you'd like. They claim the pool is heated, which I'm pretty sure is a lie, but it's not too bad." Nancy jumped and turned to see a rather tall shirtless teen with longer black hair matted to his head. "You must be new here. This school is small enough that everyone at least recognizes each other."

Nancy sighed inwardly. Great. She hadn't even been around an hour and she was sure the news of a newcomer would spread like wildfire. "And you are?"

"You don't know who I am?" the boy questioned. Seeing her confused face, he laughed. "I'm just kidding. I'm Ryan. This is my second year here. I have no clue on academics, but my sports make up for it. Not to say that I don't try." He continued rambling on and while Nancy tried hard to continue listening, she quickly lost focus.

"Ms. Drew!" Both Ryan and Nancy turned their gazes to the balcony looking over the lobby to an austere older woman with eyeglasses hanging around her neck and graying hair tightly wound in a bun. "I would like to see you in my office." As she strode rapidly away from the balcony, Ryan turned back to Nancy.

"Have you already angered Queen King?" he inquired.

Nancy shook her head, making a mental note of the nickname for the dean. Saying goodbye to Ryan, she headed up the curving staircase, her feet sinking into the plush carpet. Turning right she saw the door at the end of the hall marked _Suzanne King, Dean._

"It's open!" Nancy heard the Dean from inside her office just as she was about to knock. Lowering her hand to the door handle, she entered the domain of Mrs. King.

As soon as she stepped inside the office Nancy felt like she had walked back outside into the harsh winter of Maine. The dean sat at her desk with papers neatly compiled and sticky notes lined an area for a laptop which was not present. Behind Dean King's petite figure a rather grand chair outline was highlighted by the weak light coming in from the window, which was held in the open position with the help of a few rocks.

"Ms. Drew. Sit down. We need to discuss what you are here to do and what expectations I have of you and whoever you bring along with you." Nancy was about to thank her but a sharp glare instructed Nancy to simply take a seat in one of the two small armchairs placed opposing Mrs. King across the desk.

"Now, Ms. Drew," the dean started, "my first expectation is that you will remain somewhat inconspicuous when you conduct this investigation. You may do what you wish to solve these accidents, but you will have to follow all rules set forth by the school, and if you don't, you will be punished accordingly. I don't want any difficulties considering the amount I have already," she stated, letting her hand fall to a pile of papers, "and while I would like to solve this without the police, if you cannot do your job properly or break rules while doing so you will be gone with a flick of my wrist." The dean flicked her hand in the direction of the door just to demonstrate her power.

Standing up and pushing her rather large chair back, Dean King stepped around the edge of the desk. "That is all, Ms. Drew. I hope you understand what you need to do and that you solve this problem quickly. You may go," she finished, placing her glasses on her thin nose and walking over to the bookcase on Nancy's left. Standing and thanking the dean, Nancy began to exit the room. "By the way, Ms. Drew, please tell your friends that I would like to speak with them on your way out."

Wondering if the Hardy Boys had indeed arrived, Nancy rapidly stepped out into the hallway and closed the door gently. Despite the warmth that flooded her, she shivered. No longer did she wonder about the dean's nickname.

"Hey, Nancy!" Looking up, Nancy saw a blond head coming up the stairs.

"Hi Joe," she replied. "Queen King wants to see you."

The 17-year-old looked puzzled. "Queen King?" Nancy just gave him a look as his brother appeared from the stairs.

"Do you know how long she wants to see us for?" Frank questioned.

Nancy shrugged. "She didn't meet with me for very long. No longer than 5 minutes. Though it was probably rougher than interrogating even the toughest of suspects."

"Great," Joe said. "Always wonderful to get off on such a great foot." Looking down at his watch, he continued, "It's just about 5 now. Do we want to meet up at the dining hall at 5:30? Gives us time in case one of us gets lost."

All three laughed. "Joe, we're detectives. If we get lost on the way to the dining hall we should never take up a case again," Frank replied. "Still, 5:30 gives us time to get settled. We barely even stopped by our room to drop off our luggage."

"Alright, but keep in mind that we don't know each other," Nancy reminded the boys. "I'll talk to you later."

A floor below, someone bolted away from the staircase. Watching the titian-haired girl come down the stairs and exiting the building, the person listened to the floorboards above, hearing the door open and shut to the dean's office. Once they were sure the coast was clear, they came out of the pool and into the lobby. This was going to be a problem. But with all the secrecy these newcomers were sure to think they had the upper hand. How enjoyable it would be to prove them wrong. Smirking a bit, the perpetrator turned and headed down the hall that led to the back door.

Arriving at dinner a bit early, Nancy didn't see the Hardy Boys yet in the compact but somewhat empty dining hall. However, she did manage to spot the swimmer she had met earlier, Ryan. Making eye contact with him, he waved her over. The table he was sitting at only had a few seats filled. Nancy wasn't sure whether the cause was the decrease in those enrolled, the number of kids still in town, the popularity of Ryan and his friends, or a mixture of all three.

"Hey, come join us!" Ryan said. When Nancy sat down, he continued, "Sorry, but I only caught your last name earlier when the Queen was looking for you."

"Oh, I'm Nancy," she introduced herself. "I was invited to come at the beginning of the year but my father said I would have to pay for it. So it took awhile, but I got the funds together."

"I suppose you haven't heard about everything going on 'round here," the only other female said to Nancy. "Name's Luna. Luna Ellison." She shook Nancy's hand rather vigorously.

"No, I can't say that I've heard anything. Is there something I should know?" Nancy asked, using her innocent voice.

"Girl, you should've done your homework 'fore you came here," Luna advised. "All through the year there have been some strange accidents. Hell, Liam had a chandelier come down on him."

"Really? Where was that!?" Nancy began to make a mental note that Luna knew the victim of the chandelier incident before remembering Ryan's comment about everyone knowing everyone else.

"In the lobby. Actually, right above where we were standing earlier," Ryan commented.

"Excuse me, are these seats taken?" All five heads at the table turned to Frank, Joe close behind. Nancy saw everyone look to Ryan, who shrugged. "Why not? Everyone else is either gone or in town. You two must be new, too."

Frank nodded. "My name's Frank Hardy. This is Joe, my brother. We're from Bayport, New York."

"Wow. A lot of new kids coming in," Luna commented. Nancy thought she could hear a note of suspicion in her voice. As if on cue, a booming voice filled the hall.

"Ms. Drew, Mssrs. Hardy, Mr. Forbes. My office please."

Ryan tried to suppress a grin. "Have fun with the Queen, you guys." Then, to the Hardys, he said, "Why don't you guys grab some food quickly and eat on the way over. She thinks she's too good to escort you, so she'll never know."

The three reached the door to the hall at the same time as a tiny, wiry kid. "She's freakin' scary, isn't she?" Joe commented, and the other three agreed. "I'm Joe. This is my brother Frank."

"I'm Nancy," the senior added.

"I'm Matt Forbes. Sophomore from the public school in the next town over. Been trying to get into this school every semester since I entered high school, but they just accepted me," the other teen informed them. With Joe stuffing his face with a sandwich, the rest of the walk over to the administration building was awkwardly silent.

Jogging the last few steps, Frank up the steps first and, standing next to one of the gargoyles flanking the double doors, held it open, earning a thank you from Nancy, a nod from Joe whose mouth was still full, and a pat on the back from Matt.

By the time they had all reached Dean King's office, Joe had finished the final portion of his meal. He held his hand up to knock, only to have the door open and the Queen standing looking at him.

With Nancy and Matt seated and the Hardy Boys standing behind them, the Dean took her seat. "The reason you are all here is because I want to discuss our academics here at Harrison." All four had a feeling that the 'discussion' would be pretty one-sided. "The expectations here, being one of the top schools in the country, is that you are to take rigorous courses and keep up with them. Due to this, we require incoming students to take a test in order to determine in what grade you will be placed. Just because you are a senior," she looked at Frank, then Nancy, "a junior," she turned her gaze to Joe, "or a sophomore," she focused in on Matt, "at the school you're coming from doesn't mean that is where you'll be placed while here. Your testing will start tomorrow and finish on Tuesday. Scores will be compiled and you'll get your class selection sheet based upon what grade you are placed in on Wednesday. Keep in mind that due to this late notice on coming to the school," her brown eyes flashed, "you are already going to be behind. I suggest you all get a good night's sleep. You are all dismissed."

Matt and Nancy stood up, Matt going to the door and opening it for Nancy. Frank followed her.

"Mr. Hardy." Both Frank and Joe stopped and turned towards the dean, who was pulling out some papers from a stack on her desk. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't take your sweet time getting to my office next time on account of your meal. There is still plenty of time left before the dining hall closes."

Eyes wide, Joe quickly left the room, Matt following him. On the way back to the dining hall they four met Ryan, Luna, and their friends returning to the dorms.

"Testing time?" Ryan inquired. All four nodded, walking slowly back to where their dinner awaited. (2148, 4004)

Again, I thank you all for reading this. The positive comments have been extremely motivating and have helped me figure out what I'm doing right and what needs to change to improve this story. With that said, please continuing reviewing, whether you have positive things to say or are critiquing my work. As I said last time, the speed at which I churn out a chapter definitely varies depending on what I'm doing, and my life is about to become very busy, so I hope you stay tuned for the next chapter within the next couple weeks.


	3. An Investigation

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** It looks like life finally caught up with me. I had a short portion of this chapter done the day after Chapter 2 was posted, but it sort of just sat there as I was stretched thin. Plus the chapter just kept getting longer and longer as I thought of more and more to add. In this chapter the classes and activities at the Boarding School are underway, and we're getting to the real detective work in the story. So without further ado (considering you've waited long enough), I hope you have fun sleuthing alongside our undercover friends!

A rather loud thud awoke Nancy. Quickly turning over in her bed, she could see through her sleep-clouded eyes that her roommate was stumbling toward the door. Looking at her phone on the bedstand just as the door closed, she saw the time. Just before six. Thoroughly awake, Nancy decided trying to get back to sleep for an extra half hour wasn't worth the effort. She rolled out from under the sheets, stretched, and headed for the shower.

After she had cleaned herself up and gotten some clothes on, she prepared to set out into the cold of Maine when she heard a knock at her door. Silently cursing whichever of the Hardys was at her door and risking blowing their cover as new students who didn't know each other, she opened the door.

"Hey, Nancy. I figured maybe you'd want someone to bring you over to the Harding Center for the Sciences since you're new." Luna was leaning against the far wall of the hallway, with no gloves or hat; just a simple sweatshirt that read _Harrison Dragons_ , complete with a stone dragon with red glowing eyes behind the swirling letters. Nancy had seen something similar to the beast, but she couldn't put her finger on where.

Smiling, she said, "Thanks Luna! Have you stopped by the dining hall yet? I need to grab some food before this test. And aren't you cold?" Nancy motioned to the lack of layers the other girl was wearing.

"Ugh. Hats would definitely ruin my hair," Luna complained, flipping her straightened blonde hair over her left shoulder, running her fingers through it. "And that would start World War III, let me tell you."

Laughing, the two girls left the dorm to cross to the dining hall. They were unaware of the person walking behind them, five paces back, moving at the same pace, step by step.

Nancy and Luna passed Ryan and a couple other juniors on their way to class as they entered the dining hall, pausing for a moment to chat and for Ryan and his friends to give Nancy some helpful (and not-so-helpful) advice. About half an hour later the two young ladies followed the footsteps of Ryan as they re-entered the Maine winter.

"Did you take any tours of the school before you applied or are you seeing it all for the first time?" Luna asked.

"No, it was a bit of a last minute thing. I barely made the deadline," Nancy laughed.

As Luna joined in, she proceeded, "Well, there are three academic buildings. This one," she motioned to the building on their right they were rounding the corner of, "is where all the artsy-fartsy stuff happens."

"I take it you aren't really a fan of the arts?" Nancy inquired.

"Honestly, I'm not really much of a fan of anything. The only reason I made it into here is because I learned how to speak three languages fluently by age nine, and picked up a fourth pretty well at this point. My English is also pretty accelerated."

Nancy was impressed. "Est-ce que tu parles français?"

"Ouais. Bien sûr. Je parle l'allemand et l'espagne aussi," Luna replied. As they crossed the one road that looped around the campus to get to the outskirts, Luna pointed to the large ivy-covered building towering in front of them. "That's where I spend most of my time. I tried expanding my linguistic skills to Asian languages but they just didn't speak to me as much as the European languages." Both kept walking, then cracked grins at Luna's awful pun.

"Hey, Nancy!" The teenage girls turned to see Frank and Joe approaching. Frank seemed comfortable in similar clothes to Luna, while Joe's appearance barely left any skin exposed, even less than the titian-haired detective, who was quite thickly-layered herself.

"Hey guys. Luna's bringing me over to the Science Center."

"Actually," Luna interjected, "it's also home to the technology and math classes, but the dude they named it after was science-y. I personally think they just didn't have enough room on the sign to write 'Harding Center for the Sciences and Maths and Technologies' but that's just my opinion. And there it is," she made a dramatic flourish towards a much larger, single-floored building beyond Luna's favorite place. "Anyways, I have World History, so I need to get going. The history classes are in the same place here as the english and foreign language classes. Catch you on the flip side," she said, winking at Nancy before ducking into the arched doorway in front of the three detectives.

"So, from what it sounds like, we're going to finish our testing today about an hour before everyone else gets out of class," Frank said. "We can use that time to do some exploring."

"I also have a track practice to make it to," Joe replied. "Though that will obviously be after everyone gets out."

"Do we know if we'll all be in the same room or if we'll be separated?" Nancy wondered.

"You'll all be in the same room; after all, we've still got regular classes going around here today." The three turned towards the approaching Harding Center to see a jovial, rather round woman with her hair piled on her head in a tower rather messily. "I'm Mrs. Hyde. I'll be your test proctor today since my only classes are Advanced Molecular Biology and Genetics, both of which my student teacher is handling. Quickly, quickly! Get outside of this chilly weather!" She ushered them inside before closing the glass door behind her.

Frank looked around in awe. While the administration building had a beauty aspect to it, the technological pieces littered around the small lobby were breath-taking. A collapsible couch stood between two matching end tables, a cordless lamp sitting on either end.

"Quick like bunnies, we want to get you out on time or else the Queen will have a fit!" Frank's attention from his surroundings was drawn towards Mrs. Hyde's curious statement. The fact that even the teachers called the dean that was strange, but he filed it away for later, knowing that until he heard it from more teachers, there wasn't much to go on.

A short walk brought them to an empty classroom with five rows of six desks each. Matt was already seated in one towards the back of the room.

"Alright, if you three can find a seat, we'll get started. And if you can't find a seat, then I suppose you can't take the test." Mrs. Hyde giggled as the three maneuvered to various places around the room. "Now, today we'll be giving you the History, Science, and Foreign Language test of your choice. I see that both of the Hardy boys are signed up for Spanish, Ms. Drew is signed up for French, and Mr. Forbes is signed up for the Italian test. Are these all correct?" Mrs. Hyde peered over her oversized glasses as the four students nodded. "Excellent. Tomorrow you will be taking the English and Mathematics test. It looks like Ms. Drew and Mr. Forbes are also signed up to take the optional Performing Arts test, correct?" Again she looked up at them from the sheet she was reading from to see them affirm her statement. "Excellent. Now, let me begin handing things out. You'll have one hour and thirty minutes to complete the History portion of the exam..."

At 1:30, the four finally left the testing room. As soon as they got out they burst into conversation.

"That history test was a rough time!" Matt complained. "It centered so much on the 20th century which is stuff I know nothing about. Give me up through the end of Reconstruction and I can nail it, but that made up, like, a whole ten questions."

"Luckily Joe and I have gotten a decent amount of history. That was the best department at our school. But a lot of that Spanish was well above what I've ever learned."

"You're one to talk," Joe responded incredulously. "You had an extra year of Spanish. Watch as I get kicked back out because my scores won't even rank me as a freshman here."

All four laughed. "The French test wasn't that hard," Nancy said. "Science was a bit of a struggle, but I'm dreading the math exam tomorrow. Save the worst for last apparently."

"At least we got a nice lunch," Joe pointed out.

"Of course the highlight of your day was food," Frank joked, nudging his younger brother. The test takers reapplied the layers of clothing they had disposed of when entering the warm science building before heading back out.

"I'm going to head back to the dorm," Matt said. "You guys can join me if you like. Though not you, Nancy."

The Hardy Boys politely declined the sophomore's offer, and watched him walk off towards the outdoor track which sat between the boys dorms and the sports facilities.

"So what do we want to do with our time?" Nancy asked.

Frank thought for a moment. "Well, a couple things come to mind. It would be a good idea to take a look at where the chandelier came down, but we should also use the limited free time we have to talk to some of the teachers who don't have class right now."

"We could split up," Nancy suggested.

"I think someone should go talk to Dean King and see if we can get a list of everything that's happened, considering we still don't know the extent of what's happened since the beginning of the year." Joe immediately regretted saying it as Frank and Nancy just stared at him.

"Good idea Joe. Well Nancy, I think I'm going to go take a look at the scene of the crime. Do you want to go interview some teachers?"

Nancy grinned. "Good idea, Frank. I guess that leaves just one person to talk to the Queen."

Joe groaned. "Fine, but next time someone has to interact with her, it's not gonna be me. Kapeesh?"

"We'll see once we get there," Frank said, already heading towards the opposite side of campus. "Come on, Joe."

Nancy watched the boys from Bayport as they grew smaller before disappearing around the other side of the dining hall, which sat in the middle of the campus. Deciding to make her mission twofold, she took a right and headed towards the building Luna entered earlier. She paused for a moment outside the door and looked closer at the unassuming rocks covered with ivy on either side of the entrance. It wasn't just any rock. It was a gargoyle, a gargoyle which matched perfectly with the design on Luna's shirt.

"Well, the school definitely spares no expense on these things. Shame they are covered and unrecognizable," Nancy said to herself. She turned back to the door and ran straight into an older man coming out.

"Oof! Watch where you're going! Kid's these days." Nancy was speechless as she watched the man hobble away. Finally she got her bearings back.

"Excuse me, sir, are you a teacher here?" Instantly she regretted her curious nature as the man turned around, imposing despite his small stature.

"No. You see," he snarled, "I actually have common sense unlike these phonies that teach here. This is a sad freaking excuse for a school, and you should get out while you can." Before Nancy could say anything else he slunk away quickly. Stunned by her encounter with this mystery man, she rapidly made the decision in her mind to change course and follow him, watching him drift into the distance until she felt comfortable tailing him.

The Hardy Boys jogged to the administration building, eager to get back into the warmth of central heating.

"Have fun," Frank commented as his brother trudged up the stairs. Joe just grunted in return.

Standing in the lobby, Frank looked up at the ceiling to see where the chandelier had been prior to the accident. He positioned himself under it and looked at the angle it would come down at.

"Let's see... if it hit the victim's right leg, he probably would've been about here. But would that break the leg only and not kill him? Maybe I should ask around for pictures. Not in a creepy or suspicious way, though," Frank mused to himself. "How did the whole event happen, I wonder?"

Bending over, he got down on the floor. "Perhaps for some reason he ended up on the ground before the chandelier came down. That would allow the leg to get hit without the rest of the body."

Then it hit Frank. And he slumped to the floor, unconscious. (2115, 6119)

Hopefully you all like that little cliffhanger... I know I hate them when authors leave them for me! Thank you all for reading this story and leaving such positive comments. I welcome reviews, whether they're praising my work or critiquing it. After all, how do I become a better writer, if not from getting ideas from the readers? I hope you are all looking forward to the next installment. I know I am.


	4. A Pot

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** Well, I'm glad to see this is shaping up so well in the eyes of others. As a writer you only have a generic sense of whether something is good or not, and even then that sense can be completely off. I have actually enjoyed writing this chapter more than any thus far, because my favorite is writing about interactions with people, and a lot of the suspects you haven't met so far are introduced (as well as some extras, just to keep you wondering who may have motive and who doesn't). So, without further ado, enjoy Chapter Four!

"Hey!"

Nancy turned her head at the greeting, her heart sinking. Any chance of following the man was pretty much gone.

"What are you doing out of class?" She questioned Ryan, who came to a stop beside her.

"Some of us have last block free, and while freshmen and sophomores have to be in a study hall, juniors and seniors are allowed to roam free." He looked over her shoulder. "Great."

Nancy followed his gaze in time to see the man she had been following slowly round a corner. "What, do you know that guy?"

"Unfortunately." Ryan looked at her. "That's Phil Grady, Sr. His son Phil is super nice, everyone loves him. Which is a miracle coming from that bastard."

Nancy playfully whacked his arm. "Don't be calling other people's parents that."

"He's right, though." Out from the History and Languages building came a tall, dark student, with a buzzcut and deep brown eyes. He bore a striking resemblance to the old man. "My father isn't all that bad, but when it comes to me, he can be a bit overprotective and brash. Still trying to convince me to leave, has been since the accident." With long strides the teen finally reached them. "Name's Phil, but Ryan probably already told you that." He held out his hand, and Nancy shook it.

"It's nice to meet you, Phil."

Phil then turned to Ryan. "Hey, I'm heading over to track practice now. Today it's supposed to end around 4:30, so I'll be back, showered and ready to study for the Bio quiz tomorrow by around 5."

"Maybe we can go grab dinner before we study then, since it'll be around the time the dining hall opens. Nancy, would you care to join us?"

"For the study session or the dinner?"

Both boys laughed. "It's your choice I guess," Ryan pointed out, "though I'm hoping you aren't a big science person."

"Listen, you two can discuss this on your own. Coach Hart will have my head if I'm not at practice on time," Phil said as he turned towards the sports facilities.

"You mean you practice outside?" Nancy was surprised that the winter Track and Field team practiced outside, and wasn't looking forward to telling Joe he'd have to choose between his favorite winter sport and his warmth.

"Nah. The distance kids will go on runs outside when it isn't too bad, but we have an indoor track as well." Phil paused. "It's one of the reasons it would be pretty devastating to my future if my dad successfully got me out of here. If I'm going to try to get full ride scholarships I'd prefer to impress scouts in a quality facility than in a crappy one, which is what I'd get back in my public school in Massachusetts."  
Nancy nodded, still trying to figure out the complex relationship Phil had with his father. She stood deep in thought while Phil and Ryan continued conversing until her phone buzzed. Taking it out of her coat pocket, she looked at the caller ID. Joe. She couldn't answer the phone with the other two around, considering that she would have no good explanation for having the Hardy Boys' numbers in her phone since they weren't supposed to know each other undercover.

"So Nancy, what are you doing right now?" She looked up as Ryan's attention focused back on her, Phil well on his way across campus.

Nancy thought for a moment. "Well, I was thinking of just taking a walk around the campus to take a look at everything. I still don't know where everything is."

"Well, what better way to take a tour than with a tour guide?" Ryan flashed her a grin, which she returned. She just wanted to be left alone, but something deep inside her a little voice said that taking a walk with Ryan wouldn't be a bad thing.

"Let's start over by the administration building though," Nancy declared. "It's the one place I definitely know the location of." She gave herself a mental high-five for killing two birds with one stone; now she could walk with Ryan and head over to see Joe.

"Alright," Ryan agreed. The two took a leisurely pace, since Nancy didn't know what Joe would have in store for her. If it was something big, her walk with Ryan would be cut short.

After a few minutes of light discussion during their stroll they rounded the corner to see a crowd of students inside their destination, with even more craning their heads to look inside. The biggest red flag to Nancy, though, was the ambulance.

Fifteen minutes later, Joe, Matt and Nancy found themselves sitting in Dean King's office. The crowd in the lobby had mostly dispersed, save for Ryan, Luna, and a few others waiting for the three in the Queen's lair to reemerge.

"You are not here so I can discuss with you what happened." The Queen's face looked oddly blank for her. "The only reason you three are sitting here is due to our school policy involving the entrance test. Due to the fact that Mr. Hardy won't be physically or mentally capable to take tomorrow's pair of tests, I will be meeting with the chair and vice-chair of the Mathematics Department tonight and the chair and vice-chair of the English Department tomorrow night. We will take an in-depth look at his grades, the classes he took, and the material covered, and use this to find a theoretical score for him on both tests. Not the preferred way, but considering Mr. Hardy is incapacitated, it is the only way. Are there any questions, complaints, or concerns?" Nobody dared to speak lest the wrath of the Queen fall upon them. "Very good. Ms. Drew, Mr. Forbes, you are dismissed. Mr. Hardy, I would like to discuss some other matters with you."

Nancy and Matt nearly jumped out of their chairs to get to the door, while Joe took a seat.

Ryan and Luna bounded up the steps once they heard the door closed, a third kid right behind them. The kid was just shorter than Ryan, and looked a bit like the stereotype of a nerdy kid, with his glasses and gamer shirt.

"So what did she tell you?" Luna inquired.

"Nothing much," Matt responded. "Nothing about the accident at all, actually. Just about what they'll do in place of him taking the entrance tests tomorrow."

"An accident?" Ryan raised one eyebrow. "I hardly think so."

"You mean you really think —" the nerdy kid started.

"Yes, Bryan. Some stuff sticks out to me as being off." Ryan walked over to the banister, the four others following him. "That," he said, pointing out the broken pot that was being swept up by a janitor, "that is not where it was supposed to be. See, there is a set of two of those. The first is, or in this case was, sitting up on the top of that shelf." Again he pointed, this time to a shelf about even with their eyes. "The other is down next to the door to the library. But let me ask you, could something that large have fallen 20+ feet and not killed Frank?"

Nancy could see his point, and while she knew there was no way their cover could've been blown so quickly, a deep feeling of dread filled her. She hoped it was an accident. "That's true. But unless there was a way to tell the difference between the two before it fell, I don't see how that could've worked."

Ryan bolted down the stairs, leaving everyone else in the dust. Nancy, Luna, Matt and Bryan quickly traced his path, which led through the building straight to the library door. There Ryan was standing dumbfounded.

"What is it?" Nancy asked.

Then Luna gasped. "It's gone. The matching pot is gone. But who could've taken it? And why?"

"If anything, this proves my point," Ryan stated. "Why would someone take it randomly? There must be a correlation with the incident involving Frank."

"Oof!" Everyone turned to see Bryan stumble away from the library door which had just swung open.

"How about you don't stand in front of the door, dumbass?" A tall, bulky boy with a shaved head took Bryan and shoved him against the wall before noticing the other four. When his eyes met Ryan's he snarled.

"How about you don't beat other kids up for simple mistakes?" Ryan said, never losing eye contact with the bully. Scowling, the boy let go of Bryan, who dropped to the ground.

"You never really have learned your place, have you, Santiago? Well, you can't save everyone now." With that, the boy stalked off.

"Thanks dude," Bryan said weakly while Matt helped him up.

"Who was that?" Nancy asked. "Because I don't want to get on his bad side."

Luna snorted. "Girl, you're already on his bad side. You're with Ryan." When Nancy looked lost, she continued. "Sergio Chandler and Ryan have a bit of a popularity war going on campus here. Started at the beginning of this year. Sergio thinks he should be the BMOC because he's a senior, but Ryan's sort of been stealing his thunder from time to time."

"But aren't you a junior?" Nancy directed the question at Ryan.

"Yeah, I am. It's one of the reasons people side with Sergio and not me." He paused. "It sounds terrible to say 'side' as if there was a war, but Luna's right. It escalated to that at the end of last term. I was hoping it would go away when we came back, because I don't enjoy the whole thing, but it didn't, and just because I'm tired of it doesn't mean I'm going to let Sergio walk all over people."

"I wonder where Natalie was. She's typically all over Sergio." Natalie, Nancy assumed from Luna's comment, was Sergio's girlfriend.

"I don't know," Ryan mused. "She's a good person, she can just be swept up with Sergio a lot. Such a bad influence. My guess would be she's studying for the test we have in a few days. That's one of her best qualities," he told Nancy, "she doesn't procrastinate. One in a million in that sense."

"What if Sergio is doing something he doesn't want Natalie to be around for?" Nancy didn't know where the thought came from, but as soon as she said it she knew it was a good one.

"Huh. I didn't really think about that because he doesn't really care whether she gets swept up or not." Ryan shrugged.

"Maybe it involves today's incident." The three upperclassmen turned to look at Matt. "Well, if we agree that this wasn't an accident, it probably relates to that weird prank stuff going on. Maybe we should follow him."

Nancy was torn. On the one hand, pursuing someone who clearly could be considered a suspect due to his violent tendencies was a good idea. But she really wanted to wait for Joe so they could talk privately. Finally she made up her mind.

"I'm game for that." She figured she could talk to Joe later, while this opportunity was rare.

"I think I'm going to go back to the dorms," Bryan said. His voice had lost the quaver throughout the time he hadn't spoken.

"I'll go with you," Ryan said. "I wouldn't want Sergio to come back in the event he isn't off doing something weird." Now directing his attention to the other three, he said, "I'll catch up with you later. Luna, leave your phone on vibrate so when I text you it doesn't alert him."

Luna felt around in her pockets. "Damn, my phone is in my bag at the dorms."

"Of course it is." Ryan looked at Nancy. "What's your number?"

The two exchanged numbers, and the group split off, one going out the front entrance towards the dorms, the other out the back entrance where Sergio had exited.

Meanwhile, Joe sat face-to-face with the scariest woman he had met in his life. Scarier than even Aunt Gertrude. Because at the end of the day, Aunt Gertrude loved him. This lady did not.

"What the hell do you three think you're doing? Need I remind you that if all three of you end up in the hospital that translates to NO detective work being done? If you're all going to waltz around flirting with other students or randomly getting yourselves hurt then I will stop making your room, board and tuition free. Do you understand?" Joe just meekly nodded.

"I expect results. I am scheduling a meeting with you and Ms. Drew at 4 PM tomorrow. If you two are a second late or have no legitimate progress made on the case, I can assure you that there will no longer be a case. You are dismissed." (2149, 8268)

I know, I know, you still don't know what the status is on Frank yet. And what's the deal with that pot? And what is Sergio up to? I'm sure you came up with more questions than answers in this chapter. I hope you did, because if that is the case, I'm doing my job well. If I'm writing a mystery, typically it's good if the readers are left wondering. :evilface: Please review this, follow it, favorite it, whatever you want to do so I can know how much you enjoy this. Thank you all for being awesome!


	5. An Attack

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** Wow. Thanks to you guys the previous record on this story for most views in a day (104 the day Chapter 2 was released) was shattered the day Chapter 4 was released with 122 views. This is so exciting for me because where I typically don't publish my writing online, the only views are by me and the occasional family member. Typically I'll wait a couple days after releasing a chapter to start a new one, but this was started the afternoon after Chapter 4 was released because I felt compelled to write thanks to the positive reaction. In this chapter, Nancy and Joe race against the clock to find some clues so they won't be kicked off the case, with some unexpected results. Here it is everyone... Chapter 5! (P.S. Be prepared for a longer chapter than usual.)

Joe spotted Ryan and a darker kid in the dining hall. He walked over and slumped into a seat next to them.

"The meeting with the Queen went that well, huh?" Ryan said. "Of course, what meeting ever goes well when you're one-on-one with Queen King."

"Oh, are you Joe Hardy?" The other kid held out his hand. "Phil Grady. Junior here and member of the track team. Coach told us today you'll be joining us later this week."

Joe nodded. "Yeah, I'm super excited for it. So how are teams separated here in Maine?"

"You mean, like, by school size?" Joe nodded again. "Well, we have three classes in sports: Class A, Class B, and Class C. There's also a Class D but they just compete with Class C. In the spring for track we are Class C, but there is no Class C for indoor track, so we're considered a Class B school. What events do you do?"

"Well, I've dabbled in a lot of things, but sprinting, hurdling, and vaulting seem to be my strong points."

Phil shook his head approvingly. "That's awesome dude. Not a lot of people do the hurdles or pole vault on our team or in the state in general, compared to the races, relays, etc."

Just then, Joe's phone began to buzz. Taking it out, he slipped out of his seat. "Sorry to interrupt our conversation, Phil, but it's the doctors. I need to take this."

Walking away from the table he answered the phone. Ten minutes later he walked back in, got some food, and sat next to Ryan and Phil again, both of whom were done with their meal but waiting for the news.

"Sounds like he has a pretty bad concussion," Joe said, sick to his stomach. He wished he had gotten something to eat before the phone call. "After talking with Dean King and our parents, they've decided it would be best if he were to go back to Bayport and recover in a familiar environment and where the classes are less demanding."

"Dude, that sucks. I'm sorry." Ryan patted him on the back. "Listen, we've got to go study for a Bio quiz."

"Okay." Joe felt pretty deflated. "By the way, have you seen Nancy or Matt?"

"Yeah, I left them a little while ago," Ryan replied. "They're following Sergio with Luna. He was acting a bit weird."

"Is there really anything Sergio does that isn't weird?" Phil pointed out.

Joe found it interesting that Nancy was off investigating with those who could be considered suspects, but he figured it made the whole activity of sneaking around less suspicious if she was with others who were more well known on campus, like Luna.

"Maybe I'll text Nancy or Matt and see where they are." Although Joe didn't have Matt's number, he decided dropping an extra name along with Nancy's would help to keep their cover.

"Okay. Tell Nancy I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but that I completely forgot about this quiz until Phil came to get me," Ryan told Joe.

"Will do. Catch you guys a bit later." The other two juniors stood up and left, leaving Joe alone at the table. He fretted over his brother, who he planned to see after his meeting with Nancy and the Queen. He stressed about the double duty of the tests he had to take the following day, and the clues he had to collect. He wondered where Nancy was, and if her adventure was coming to fruition.

As he thought, Nancy happened to be sitting in a dumpster. Crammed between the trash below her and the lid above her, she tried to concentrate on the discussion going on outside her cage.

"Look at me. Does it look like I care whether you have the money or not?" That was Sergio.

"I know, the money isn't the important part. Trust me, it's coming. It's just taking a bit longer than it should." Nancy wasn't sure who the second person was, only that it was a female. Luna had been waylaid by her Psych teacher about having missed her class that day, which led to her being dragged off to her dorm. Matt had gotten a call from his mother, which he grudgingly took. Nancy had pretended to be uninterested if the others weren't tailing Sergio with her, but as soon as they departed she got right back on the trail. She lost track of him only to hear footsteps approaching her location behind the Harding Science Center. Her quick thinking landed her in safety, even if that safety was both smelly and a bit slimy.

"You should know I don't like to be kept waiting." Sergio again.

"Well, I'd like to see you try to cut me out of this. Because you don't need a psychic to figure out that this whole thing would go down the drain."

 _BZZZZZZ!_ Nancy swore silently at her phone. Not daring to move, she heard the female speak again.

"I don't know what that noise was, but I don't like it. Give me time or else you get chopped out of the equation and I pull this off myself." The sound of receding high heels resounded through Nancy as she breathed a sigh of relief. When Sergio's heavy boots began moving as well, Nancy waited until she could no longer hear them to pull out her phone. A message from Joe popped up on the screen. She smiled, texted him back, and slowly began extracting herself from her hiding place.

Joe could smell Nancy approaching before he could see her. "You smell awful!" he exclaimed. "I mean, I get why, but you really need to take a shower as soon as possible."

Nancy grimaced. "I know. Anyways, you said you had news on Frank. How's he doing? And when is he being released?"

As Joe filled Nancy in, the detective felt a mix of emotions. On the one hand, it set them back and only gave them two people on-site to solve the mystery. On the other hand, Frank could've been more seriously injured or even killed by the pot. She was thankful the most he suffered was a concussion.

"And you said the dean knows this?" Joe nodded affirmatively to Nancy's question. "I doubt this will change her mind about that meeting tomorrow, so we're going to have to work hard."

"For sure," Joe agreed. "So, tell me about what you found out from your hunt."

"Well, I overheard a conversation between him and a girl. My assumption is it was Natalie, but I may be wrong. I'll be able to put the voice to a face, though, if I meet them."

Joe nodded. "So what were they talking about?"

"I'm not really sure," Nancy confessed. "They could've been talking about the issues going on around here, but some of their comments didn't really fit with that theory."

Joe thought for a moment. "You know, I hate to say this, but we can bring assumptions to the Queen. As in, we don't need a ton of evidence. Get a few scattered pieces and say they seem to point towards Sergio, and it keeps us afloat long enough to get more information and figure out if it was him or if someone else is behind this."

"That seems dirty. But," Nancy continued, "I'll leave it open as a last resort. If we get something better, we drop the idea. But if not, it's our only hope to keep this case."

"Then I guess we work hard to get some solid ideas out on the table," Joe said grimly. "But you have a more important task than that."

Nancy looked at him with a lost look. "And that would be?"

"Taking a shower." Both laughed for a minute or two, using that one moment to relieve all the tension of the day put on them between Frank, Queen King, and the dumpster. Going their separate ways, Joe arrived back at the dorm in time for Phil to come rushing up.

"What's up Phil?" Despite the fact that the junior had been running, he wasn't breathing heavily at all. It was clear to Joe that Phil was quite fast and most likely an intricate part to the track team.

"Have you seen Ryan? I can't find him around anywhere!" Phil seemed relatively calm, but Joe could tell nerves were starting to set in.

"Didn't you both leave together?" Joe asked. "And weren't you going to study for a test or something together? How did you lose track of him?"

Phil took a deep breath. "We did come back, and started prepping for the quiz tomorrow. About 20 minutes ago he went to the bathroom, but he isn't there. So I have no idea where he might be."

"Why don't you take me to the bathroom where he said he was going?" Upon Joe's request, Phil took him to the bathroom.

"This is the bathroom where he should've been. Our room together is right there," Phil said, pointing across the hall and two doors down.

Joe slipped into the bathroom. It was kept sparkling clean, which stunned Joe, considering the fact that several males used it multiple times every day. There were no immediate signs of a struggle, Joe noted. Nothing was knocked around or broken. He stepped back out.

"It doesn't look like anyone was messing around in there. If Ryan was ever in there, he probably left of his own free will."

Just then Joe noticed a small piece of wood wedged underneath a back exit to the dorm down the hallway. Pointing to it, he asked, "Would Ryan have gone outside that way for some reason?"

Phil shrugged. "It wouldn't be the Ryan thing to do. If he did, he would have to have a pretty good reason for it." Just then, a shout could be heard from outside. Both track athletes looked at each other, then bolted towards the door. Phil reached it first, slamming into the door and swinging it wide open. Darkness had already set it in, so nothing was visible until Joe pulled out his phone and turned the flashlight on. On the ground facedown was Ryan. Above him stood Sergio, holding a baseball bat, with a beautiful girl with short brown hair pulling on his arm.

"Sergio, stop!"

"Natalie, get the hell off me. This bastard's had it coming for awhile." Just then Sergio looked up at the source of light coming from Joe's phone. Growling, he started towards the door.

"Joe, run and get to Queen King!" Joe didn't have to be told twice, taking his phone and running through the building and out the other side towards the administration building.

As soon as he was in, Joe bounded up the steps to the top floor and raced to the door marked with the dean's name. He knocked sharply on the door incessantly until it opened.

"What do you think you're doing?" Dean King looked about ready to bite Joe's head off, but he wasn't caring at that moment.

"Sergio whatever-his-last-name-is has a baseball bat and he's beating Ryan Santiago to pieces outside the boys dorm!" Joe hoped his rapid words didn't blur together in the Queen's mind but she seemed to immediately understand.

"Gordon! I could use your help here in controlling one of your students." Joe was amazed by how fast the dean was out of her office. Her door remained open, and a large, burly man with a long beard appeared in the doorway. He grabbed a coat off the door hanger.

"The dean will get pretty pissed after this whole thing is over if she isn't warm and cozy on the way back to her office." Letting out a hearty laugh, Gordon pushed past Joe, shutting the door behind him. Joe followed him out of the building, calling Nancy as he traversed the campus.

"Hey, what's up? I just got out of the shower."

"Nancy, Ryan went missing. Phil and I went looking for him and found Sergio beating him up with a baseball bat. I'd suggest you come over. And bring Luna if she's around." Not giving Nancy time to respond, Joe hung up and broke into a run.

When he arrived at the scene he nobody around, so he moved inside the building. Boys were poking their heads out of their dorm rooms talking in low voices with each other excitedly. Moving past all them, Joe reached the room Phil had pointed out as his and Ryan's.

Upon knocking, Joe was let into the room by Phil. Ryan sat on his bed, seeming dazed and shaken. Gordon sat next to him, patting him on the back and asking what hurt and moving various extremities in what seemed to be a series of tests. Phil leaned against the wall across from the pair, dumbfounded, while the dean stood directly beside the door, jabbering into her phone.

"What happened after I left?" Joe asked as he approached Phil.

"Sergio took off once he realized where you were going and that he wouldn't be able to catch you. Natalie was dismissed by Dean King and was brought to the girls dorm by Mrs. Hyde, who also showed up. Mr. Cochran carried Ryan in here. Hopefully Ryan didn't break anything."

"Well, Mr. Grady, I think your prayers may have been answered." Mr. Cochran stood up from beside the bed. "It appears that other than some nasty bruises and a sprained ankle Ryan is fine." Leaning in towards to boys so as to make sure the dean couldn't hear, he continued, "If you want my opinion, Natalie was probably there the whole time and fine with Ryan and Sergio beating on each other with just fists, but then Sergio picked up the baseball bat which he brought and Natalie thought he was going too far so she tried to stop him. That's probably when you folks showed up."

"That's exactly what happened." All four people in the room, even Dean King, who was still on the phone, looked towards Ryan.

"We can clear this up later." Dean King hung up and put her phone in her pocket. "Ryan, I can assure you that those involved in this will be punished. However, if what you say is true, some punishment will have to come down upon you as well for fighting back. We'll sort out the details later. Gordon, let's go search for Mr. Chandler." As the two adults were leaving Luna and Nancy came bursting into the room. "Ms. Ellison, Ms. Drew, you are not allowed to be in here."

"Suzanne, I think these kids deserve some time to be together," Mr. Cochran pointed out. "Maybe not here, but perhaps in a more public area? Like the library?"

"The library isn't open, Gordon, and I won't open it for five teenagers with no supervision." The dean seemed very stern.

When the dean turned away, Mr. Cochran rolled his eyes. "Suzanne, Michael is still around. I don't see any issue with sending them to his room, perhaps."

The dean huffed in disapproval, but relented. Soon all five were sitting in the French room with Mr. Tyler, Luna's favorite teacher. A small, elderly man with a squeaky voice, he had quickly made them all hot cocoa when he had heard of what had happened and got Ryan an ice pack for his ankle.

"I'm sure you kids will want to talk without an adult around so talk freely. I'll be in the back room if you need me, but I'll put my headbuds in so I won't hear a word you're saying."

No one bothered to correct his mistake as they all just sat around, the only noise being the occasional sipping sound from their drinks.

"So what do you think will happen to Sergio?" No one answered Luna's question and no one really wanted to.

About 20 minutes of silence later, Phil left, citing his bio quiz in the morning. Joe went with him, and soon Luna left as well, leaving just Nancy and Ryan.

"You know, I feel bad for him." Nancy jumped a little, as it was the first time Ryan had spoken since they arrived at Mr. Tyler's room. She put her hand over his. She wasn't quite sure why. It seemed to calm Ryan a bit, so she kept it there.

"Why do you say that?" She asked.

"He had a rough childhood, with a mother gone for most of his life and his father on drugs and almost always high. But he had friends, so everyone was nice to him. From what I hear, that was not the case when he arrived here." Pausing, Ryan set his cup down and put his other hand on top of Nancy's. "He's a super smart kid, but he got in with the wrong crowd here when people didn't befriend him, and he started preferring people to view him as their leader rather than their friend."

At that point, Ryan fell back into silence. Nancy sat there next to him while the clock advanced minute by minute. Then, electrifying the atmosphere around them, they kissed.

Mr. Tyler walked out, smiled, and walked back into his office. 'Young love," he said under his breath. (2888, 11,156)

Well, how did you like that? I think I fit in two decent plot twists within one chapter, but that is up to you to decide. How do you think this Ryan/Nancy thing is going to play out? Do you think it's a great idea or are you screaming at Nancy in your mind because Ryan tops your suspect list? Either way I hope this chapter leaves you begging for more, whether it is on the relationship or mystery front. Trust me, the mind games are only just getting started.


	6. A Meeting

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** It sounds like some people are sad that Frank is going away. While he is not going to be present on campus he will still be helping Nancy and Joe out from Bayport while he recovers. It may not be the Frank we're all used to seeing, considering his concussion, but I figured it would make for an interesting plot twist. I hope you enjoy Chapter 6 as Nancy and Joe do some more sleuthing while working around their schedules, which include sports, tests, and a new factor in the equation for Nancy: Ryan. (P.S. I'm assuming you all understand that Ned doesn't exist in the story.)

It hadn't been a long kiss. It hadn't been overly engaging. But it was the best kiss Nancy had ever had. Sure, she had had a few kisses in the past, but as she scrolled through her rather short list of boyfriends none of them came close to what she had experienced with Ryan.

But as she turned it over and over in her mind while she sat in bed waiting for sleep, worry also set in. Ryan, like everyone on the campus, was a suspect in the crimes. Did the risks outweigh the benefits? And what would happen if he turned out to be the perpetrator. Was she ready to betray him to do the right thing? Nancy's questions swam through her head until she fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next day, Joe and Nancy met up with Matt at the Harding Center only to find a note posted to the door.

"Those taking the entry exam please report to the Kellogg Building for History and Foreign Languages," Joe read aloud. "We'd better hurry; it's almost time to start."

Luckily all three arrived on time, mostly due to the jogging pace they took and the location of the Kellogg Building, which sat very near the Harding Center. There they were greeted at the door by none other than Mr. Tyler.

"Hello, my students. Ms. Drew, Mr. Hardy, please feel free to lead the way to my room." As Nancy walked past him he flashed a knowing smile, causing her to blush ever so slightly.

A few hours later the three were leaving via the same doors they had entered through that morning.

"I have to go do my stagehand exam, you guys," Nancy said as they passed between the two gargoyles guarding the door. "I'll catch up with you later."

"I'm going with you for my singing exam," Matt added.

"Way to ditch me, guys." All three laughed. Joe continued, "I'm off to the sports facilities, since Phil told me he'd show me around up there."

Joe headed up the slight hill the campus was on in the direction of the track. He moved quickly, to keep warm as well as get to the heated building faster. He entered through the single door entrance and followed the signs to the track.

Walking in, Joe marveled at what he saw. A pristine 8-lane track made of rubber looped the large indoor space. Inside the track were two long jump and triple jump runways, with boards built in. A high jump mat sat just inside the far curve, and the shot put area was just beyond that outside the track. Along the other side of the track a runway led up to the pole vault mats.

"BANG!" Joe looked towards the 55 meter dash start, where a young woman with a ponytail pulled through her hat sat holding blocks. A few strides away, Phil was slowing down from his block start.

"That looked better, Phil. Just try to swing that arm up a bit more." He turned around and headed back to where he had started. "Hey there, are you Joe?" the woman called. Phil spun towards the door and waved as Joe jogged down to the track, his layers of outdoor clothing sitting next to where he had been standing.

"Hey dude, what's up?" Phil gave Joe a fist bump before turning to the woman. "This is Coach Krista. She is the sprinting and hurdling coach."

"Nice to meet you, Joe. I hear you're a hurdler." Krista shook his hand. "I'm not planning on working with the hurdlers today but if you want to grab a few and get them on the track I can work with you now."

Joe nodded. "Okay, sounds great! Now, where are the hurdles?"

Meanwhile, Nancy walked out of the director's office. Her exam, much to her surprise, was not an exam at all. Mr. Farnsworth, the director, said he much preferred to have a discussion about different things relating to the world of stage sets, props, and tech. While the idea caught Nancy off guard, she felt confident leaving the office of the middle-aged man that she had left a good impression.

On her way out of the Arts center she bumped into two girls walking into the building. Holding the door open for them, they ignored her as they continued their conversation.

"It's just so frustrating, you know?" the petite girl with the short hair complained. "I know that the phrase 'guilty by association' is going to be used, whether I did anything or not."

"Sergio has to keep himself out of trouble," the taller girl with fiery red hair commented. "He's letting Ryan win by being too aggressive. He's lucky that he only got a suspension and not more for what he did last night."

Nancy's eyes widened. For one thing, the girls were talking about Sergio and Ryan. But that wasn't the fact that alarmed Nancy. The redhead was the same girl she had heard with Sergio from the dumpster!

She watched the girls walk further into the building just as someone called out to her.

"Nancy!" She turned her gaze outside and her heart skipped a beat. Ryan was jogging towards her.

"Aren't you supposed to be resting for the day?" Nancy berated him. _Uh-oh_ , she thought. _I already sound like a girlfriend._

"Please. Do I seem like the type of guy to be bedridden for a day with a sprained ankle to you? Because if so, we need to work on your judge of character." Ryan smiled at her, which turned to a grimace after he stepped wrong on his sprained ankle. Nancy started toward him, but he motioned her off.

Just then, Nancy had an idea. It was risky, but she was willing. "Hey, come here for a second. I need your help."

"Sure. What's up?" Ryan finally reached the doorway, where Nancy ushered him in, closing the door behind him.

"Who are those girls?" She questioned him. "I know one of them is Natalie, Sergio's boyfriend, but who's the other one?"

"Oh, that's Louise Rivers. Her dad and Mr. McClain are best friends, but I don't think she's that close to Natalie."

Nancy looked puzzled. "Who is Mr. McClain?"

"Oh, I didn't know you only knew her first name," Ryan replied. "It's Natalie's dad. Both of them work in Portland. Some big business, but I don't really know either of them well enough to know what it is." He stopped for a moment as they awkwardly stood together before breaking the silence. "Hey, do you know what the deal is on Sergio? No one would tell me."

Instantly a war began to rip Nancy apart on the inside. From what it sounded like, Sergio would be back at some point, and probably more furious than ever. She didn't want Ryan worrying about that, but at the same time, she knew he'd find out eventually. Plus he had a right to know.

"It sounds like he got a suspension, but I don't know for how long." Nancy watched as confusion flickered across Ryan's face, followed by a slight flash of fear before he regained his composure.

"A suspension!? That's all?" An edge of fury had crept into his voice. "That bastard was about ready to come at me with a baseball bat and they don't expel him?"

"He never actually attacked you with a baseball bat, Mr. Santiago. And watch your language." Nancy and Ryan both rolled their eyes before turning to face the Queen. "Had he, I assure you his punishment would've been more severe." Nancy doubted that it would have been.

"Dean King, you mentioned last night that Ryan would have to receive some form of punishment as well," Nancy said. "Did you decide on what it would be?"

"Well," Queen King stated, "with Mr. Chandler having a suspension lasting through next Friday, discussion was had about giving Mr. Santiago a suspension for the remainder of the week." Nancy and Ryan's mouths dropped open in shock. "However, it seems Mrs. Hyde and Mr. Cochran took pity on you," the dean continued, "and you will have to serve a detention with Mr. Tyler all day this Saturday."

Without giving them a chance to reply, Dean King swept past them, leaving a cold chill behind where she had been standing.

"I swear, someday—" Ryan started, but was cut off with a quick kiss from Nancy.

"Now, now. You can't go losing your head. She may be a terrible person, but you just need to chill out."

Later that afternoon, as Nancy stormed out of the dean's office, it was not all right.

"How the hell did I land as a junior from those tests?" she fumed to Ryan, who had made the daring choice to accompany her and Joe to the building.

"Hey, chill, okay? Look on the bright side. We will probably end up in a lot of the same classes." Ryan gave her a smile, which wasn't reciprocated.

The meeting had gone from bad to worse. The dean first asked for a status update on the case, to which Nancy and Joe informed her that Sergio was their number one suspect but that they were also looking into some suspicious behavior by Louise. Queen King had not seemed too happy at the lack of physical evidence but allowed them to stay on the case despite reprimanding them. Then she gave them both their grade assignments. Nancy left immediately upon learning that rather than being a senior like she was, she was being moved down due to a low test score.

"I nailed the French section, considering I'm fluent. And the math section wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be." Nancy struggled to grasp the fact that someone who, while not a genius, was still very smart could be moved down a grade.

Ryan was silent as they descended the stairs and down the hall to the library, allowing Nancy to rant. She lowered her voice a bit when they entered the library, but stopped short when she looked around.

"I figured this might be a good place to bring you. Looks like my hunch was right." Nancy finally reciprocated the smile Ryan gave her, looking around at the countless numbers of shelves that each contained countless numbers of books.

"I love this place," Nancy gushed. She kept her head on a swivel as Ryan led her to a table in the corner of the library, allowing her to view the balconies that opened both portions of the upper floor, which were separated, up to the first floor.

Once Nancy turned her eyes back to Ryan, he leaned in to kiss her. "Whoa whoa whoa," she said, putting a finger to his lips. "We're in public."

"Didn't stop you earlier in the Arts Center," Ryan pointed out. Nancy's heart skipped a beat, and she was convinced if it continued missing so many beats in a day she would have a problem. She was a bit nervous. She had started the first two kisses herself, but now she was giving the power over to him. She wasn't ready. But that wasn't going to stop her.

Just as they were kissing, Joe rounded the corner. He blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't imagining the scene in front of him. "Um, excuse me. Hate to break this up, but Nancy, I need to talk to you."

Nancy opened her eyes, alarmed. Of course the one person who had to round the corner had to be Joe. Standing up, she saw something in Ryan's eyes as they opened. Was it jealousy? "I'll be right back, I promise."

Joe walked past a few rows before moving down one that was empty. He spun around and faced Nancy. "What the hell do you think you're doing? He's a suspect as much as anyone else, and if you get on an emotional level as deep as I just saw or deeper you could screw this whole investigation over."

Nancy was hurt by Joe's assessment, but she knew he was right. Still, she wasn't willing to give up Ryan. Not until he was proven guilty, which he most likely wasn't.

"While you were off doing who-knows-what with Ryan, I was doing detective work between my hurdling practice and our meeting just now," Joe declared. "I did some research in here and found out that Phil's dad, Phil Grady, Sr. attended this boarding school. But he was kicked out his senior year after a prank he orchestrated led to a death of another student. He was never charged legally but it damaged his reputation."

Nancy furrowed her eyebrows. "So do you think maybe he is back at it again for some reason?"

"Or maybe it's a case of like father, like son." Joe didn't like that idea but he realized after seeing Nancy and Ryan together that it was more important than ever to keep emotions in a different compartment from the case notes in his brain.

"It's possible, but if you ask me, Sr. is more of a likely suspect than Jr. is," Nancy stated. "I think we should still look at the Sergio angle a bit more, though that will be hard with him gone for the time being. Natalie and Louise are pretty high on my suspect list, too."

Joe took out a piece of paper and a pencil. "So, let's see. We have two warring boys over who is the BMOC, the girlfriend of one of the boys, a girl with a mysterious connection to one of them, and a star athlete whose father was kicked out some years ago." He wrote down each name and motive as he went past them. "Plus Luna, considering she is best friends with Ryan. It looks like we've got motives pretty well nailed down."

"Yeah, we do," Nancy agreed. "And that leaves us with too many suspects and no answers as to who is guilty." (2337, 13,493)

So, our sleuths have six suspects on their list. Who do you think is the perp? Do you think it's someone who isn't even on their radar? I know a lot of new information wasn't introduced in this chapter, but now the final little bits and pieces of the expository have fallen into place. I think based on the general plot outline I have this story will land between 15 and 20 chapters, so we've got a long journey ahead of us. Please follow, favorite and review, and I look forward to writing some more for the best readers in the world!


	7. A Message

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** I know this took longer to be published compared to previous chapters. I've started up a Once Upon a Time fanfic,  Shattered (a little shameless self-promoting there) so please don't expect this every-other-day thing to be the norm. I'll be doing a chapter for one story and then a chapter for the other, so reading Shattered will be the best indicator for you to know when a new chapter for this will be arriving (I know, the self-promoting doesn't end). And now, buckle up. This is an action-packed chapter, with some secrets found and suspenseful moments. Nancy and Joe will have to work against the clock to stop the perpetrator after a threat is made. Get ready for Chapter 7.

Nancy awoke to a tapping noise. Looking around, she determined the sound to be coming from the window. Looking over at her roommate, sound asleep, she pulled the shade away from the window and jumped back.

Ryan was standing outside.

Moving as quickly but as quietly as possible, Nancy grabbed her coat and boots and slipped them on, exiting into the hallway and out into the brutal winter night.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed. Looking down at her phone, she said, "It's almost 3 A.M. and we have school tomorrow."

"Nancy, Phil is gone and so is Joe. I don't know where they took off to or if they're even together."

Nancy slowed him down. "Wait, what? Tell me what happened."

"I was sleeping when I heard a door click shut," Ryan explained. "I opened my eyes and turned my phone light on, and Phil wasn't in his bed. Plus, his coat and stuff was still sitting in our room. So I got up and went out to look for him."

"Why didn't you think he had just gone to the bathroom?" Nancy was still a bit groggy, and her brain wasn't sorting information as quickly as it typically did.

Ryan said, "I didn't see his phone on his nightstand, and there would be no point to bringing the phone to the bathroom. So I went down the hall and knocked at Joe's door, but there was no response."

Nancy groaned. "Ryan, Joe is a heavy sleeper. If you knocked quietly there would be no way he would hear it. But, for the sake of checking, let me go grab the key to his room; he gave me the spare one since he didn't trust anyone else."

She walked back inside, fumbled around in her desk for the book where she kept the key hidden, grabbed it, and exited the building to where Ryan was standing, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Ready?" She said, heading across the street. Ryan stood still for a moment, then caught up.

"Nancy, can I ask you something?" Ryan said.

"Sure," Nancy replied, "but don't expect to get an in-depth answer. I'm still not awake."

"Are you sleeping with Joe?"

Nancy twirled around quickly to face him. "What!? Why would I be sleeping with Joe? Do you think I'd be the kind of person to sleep with anybody?"

Ryan looked unconvinced. "Well, for one thing, you have the spare key to his room. Sure, I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, but then you say that Joe is a heavy sleeper. How would you know that? You literally just met him a few days ago."

Nancy let out a string of internal curses. She had screwed up, and she had screwed up badly.

When she didn't answer, Ryan stopped walking. "You are sleeping with him," he said quietly, his tone full of anger but also tinged with regret.

What did she do? On the one hand, Nancy could blow her cover and explain everything to him. On the other hand, she could watch a promising relationship go down the drain.

"Come on. Let's go," she said. Nancy started walking, but when she turned around, Ryan was still standing in the same place he'd been. "Do we want to find out what's going on with Phil and Joe or what?"

"Just tell me yes or no," Ryan stated. "One simple word."

"No."

"Yeah, right." Ryan clearly didn't believe her, but started trudging along anyways.

The few silent minutes it took to reach the boys dormitories were some of the longest Nancy had ever experienced. Each step she took brought a new concern, a new worry to her mind.

Finally the pair reached the side door leading into the dorms. Ryan unlocked it and walked in, Nancy following close behind.

"Ms. Drew." Nancy spun to see the door being propped open by Queen King. "I believe this is not your dorm. Or perhaps you just enjoy disregarding the rules?"

Nancy was shocked. "What? No, we're just looking into something."

"Well, Ms. Drew," the dean began, "I typically take anything a young lady who is in the boys dorm building with a male in the middle of the night says with a grain of salt."

Nancy realized what she meant. "I'm here on business, nothing more, Dean King."

"Business?" Ryan echoed. "What the hell is going on?"

"I'd watch that mouth, Mr. Santiago. You're already looking at a harsh punishment as it stands," the dean snarled. "I expect you will return to your room. Ms. Drew, I will refresh your memory on where the correct dorm building is located."

The next morning, Joe couldn't find Nancy anywhere on his way to his class. Arriving in U.S. History, he was about to take a seat next to Ryan when he spoke up.

"That seat's taken." Joe raised an eyebrow at him, but there was no other response. He moved around to the desk behind where he was going to sit, next to Phil. The seat was never taken.

During his second period, Joe had a study hall, which allowed him to leave the building and go wherever on campus he wanted since he was an upperclassman. He walked out of the center while dialing a number on his phone.

"Hey, what's up, bro?" Frank sounded a bit groggy, like he'd been sleeping, but Joe needed someone to talk to.

"Hey Frank. How's it going?"

"Oh, it's going," his brother replied. "I still haven't been cleared to go back to school, so I'm just chilling around here. Mostly reading. But enough about me, we both know you wouldn't call in the middle of the school day to find out how I'm doing. How's the case going?"

"Well, we have a bit of a problem or two. Or three or four. I don't know, I've lost count." Joe sighed. "First off, Nancy and Ryan have been getting a relationship going. We both know she'll be impartial, but she hasn't appeared that way thus far."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. "That's interesting," his brother finally said. "She doesn't seem the type to get something going with a suspect. What is your opinion on him?"

"Well, my gut says he probably isn't the perp. Especially since Nancy would be seeing some red flags."

"And what does your brain say?"

"I honestly don't know. There's a lot going to this mystery."

"Well, is there anything I can do to help?" Frank had an eager tone in his voice.

Joe thought for a moment. "Actually, yeah. Are you allowed to use your laptop?"

"Not for very long," his brother admitted. "But, I can use it in short spans of time. What do you need me to research?"

"I'd like a bit of background on Louise Rivers and Natalie McClain. Apparently both of their fathers work together in some big Portland business according to Nancy, so I'd like to get a bit more background on them."

"Same last names for the fathers as for the daughters?" Frank inquired.

"Yep. I'll be in class for most of the rest of the day and then I'll have track, so I think it would be better if I called you when I'm free."

Frank laughed. "Well, other than lunch and dinner, I've got nothing booked for today, so I'll get to researching and then let you know what I find when I talk to you."

"Thanks, you're the best. Talk to you later." Joe hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed three minds would be working at the case after all.

He turned around and ran straight into Nancy.

"Nancy! Where have you been?" He asked her. "I've called you three times." It was then that he noticed her eyes were red. "What's wrong?"

"I got out of a meeting with Dean King a little while ago." Nancy proceeded to explain the night's events to Joe, who listened in disbelief. He was speechless for a minute after she finished.

Finally, the blond teen spoke. "Nancy, you say the dean showed up from nowhere?"

"Yeah, she did," Nancy said. "It was like she was a ghost; there wasn't a soul to be seen around campus, and then all of a sudden she showed up right behind us at the door."

Joe started walking back into the History building, Nancy following him. "What is it, Joe? Where are we going?"

Joe didn't say a word until he reached Mr. Cochran's room. The teacher looked up from the papers on his desk at the arrival of the two students. "Hey Joe. Hey Nancy. What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Cochran, I have a question for you, and I need you to answer it honestly," Joe told the teacher. "Is there a security system on campus?"

Mr. Cochran tilted his head. "I don't think so. Not like cameras or anything, if that's what you're asking." He stood up from his desk, stretching his arms out to their impressive wingspan. "Although that question would be better suited for Dean King. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Joe answered. "Thanks though, Mr. Cochran."

After they left the room, Nancy stepped in front of Joe to stop him in his tracks. "You think there is a security system on campus?" she inquired.

Joe nodded. "Think about it. The first night, she busted me for eating my dinner on the way to a meeting with her. Then, in the middle of the cold winter night, she just happens to be taking a stroll around and sees you breaking the rules with Ryan. I think she has cameras set up, and I think I know where the monitors that the cameras hook up into are located."

Nancy looked stunned. "And where would that be?"

Twenty minutes later, she was picking the lock to Suzanne King's office. "Are you sure this is a good idea and that she isn't due back for awhile?" Nancy pressed Joe.

"You heard Cochran when we went back in. He said she was due back in well after dinner tonight," Joe responded.

"Yeah, but don't forget that she hates me with a burning passion and she always shows up at the worst times," Nancy pointed out. The lock clicked, and she pulled out her bobby pin. "We're in."

Once they closed the door Joe immediately moved behind the desk. "Nancy, come take a look at this."

Under the desk sat three monitors, each with a dozen cameras on the screen.

"When that pot fell on Frank and we heard the loud crash, my instinct if I were facing the door would be to look there. Instead, she looked down before turning her gaze up," Joe explained.

"I wonder where the cameras are hidden," Nancy mused. "After all, you'd think we'd see them around campus somewhere."

"Well, there's one on the outside of the main entrance to this building," Joe said, pointing to one of the monitors. "Let's go check it out."

The pair checked the cameras to make sure that no one was around outside the office before exiting. Hopping down the stairs and out the door, the ran straight into Ryan.

"Hey," Nancy said as Ryan pushed past them to move in the direction of the library.

Joe sighed. "Nancy, as much as you want to get this relationship going again, maybe it's for the better that you can focus on the case now."

Nancy spun with such force to face him that he took two steps back. "Joseph Hardy. That boy really wants to have a relationship with me, but is ignoring me because he thinks I'm sleeping with you. That breaks his heart, it breaks mine, and can you honestly tell me I've worked harder today or in the past couple days? Because other than this just now, I've pulled off absolutely nothing at all today."

She pushed the door out rather violently to go find the camera, her titian hair swinging behind her.

Joe made it out the door as Nancy walked away from the building. "Hey, Nancy! Where are you going?" He jogged to catch up with her, slowing to her pace when they were even. "Listen, I'm sorry. Now can we please go back and look for the camera?"

"I already found it," the 18-year-old said. "Only I figured blatantly pointing it out would lead to some trouble when Queen King watched the tape. What is the one thing that is at every building on multiple sides and at all the entrances, but fits in with the school?"

Once she mentioned the entrances it clicked in Joe's mind. "The gargoyles. The cameras are hidden in the gargoyles."

"Yes. The gargoyles." Without saying another word Nancy stepped to the side and broke off the path that Joe was walking. He watched her head to the Arts center in disbelief.

"And people wonder why I've never had a girlfriend," Joe said to himself. Checking his watch, he realized he had to hurry to get his clothes from his room before practice. On his way, he pulled out his phone and called up Bayport for the second time that day.

"Dude, I've been waiting for you to call for, like, two hours."

"Hello to you, too," Joe replied. "I'm thinking you have something big, considering the greeting I got."

"I don't know if it's big," his brother said, "but it's definitely something."

"Okay, shoot."

"Well," Frank started, "it looks like they work in a large construction business. It's called McClain Structures and Foundations, and was founded by Natalie's father. Louise's dad is the VP based on what their website says. But here's the kicker: while neither of them necessarily do a lot of work actually building things, it sounds like Mr. McClain's specialty is electrical work and installing lighting systems."

Joe's eyes lit up. "And would that category include chandeliers?"

"In my opinion, yeah, it would."

"Dude, that's awesome," Joe declared. "Now, I've got another thing I want you to do, if at all possible."

In the background of the call Joe could hear his mother calling to Frank. "Make it quick, bro, I have to go empty the dishwasher for mom here in a minute or two."

"I need you to do some digging on Suzanne King, the dean. There's been some stuff that makes Nancy and I a bit concerned that she hasn't been fully transparent with us and we want to know if she's hiding anything else."

Frank sighed. "Will do, Joe. Just keep in mind that if there's something that you're seeing that makes you worried about the head of the school, you're playing with fire if you pursue it. Be careful."

"Yep," Joe said as he entered his room. He swore as he dropped the phone.

"Joe? You there?" Frank got no reply from his brother, who was busy looking at the blood covering his bed and dripping onto the floor. On the shade was written in the same dark liquid: LET'S PLAY. (2510, 16,003)

How about that for an ending? I know, I creeped myself out a bit when I came up with an idea. But it certainly puts the perpetrator (killer?) on the map. Plus there's the question of the blood and who that came from. So, Frank makes his return after an absence from Chapters 4-6, but it seems like everything else is falling apart. You know, I always hate when things fall apart in a TV show to create drama, because I just want it all to get fixed ASAP. Well, now that I'm the one who gets to create and mold the drama, it's so much fun. I know, I'm just tormenting all of you awesome people who read this. Please favorite, follow, and review to show your support for this story! :)


	8. A Confrontation

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** Well, this is super late compared to previous chapters! I apologize for the delay, as I've been on the go for much of the week, preventing me from getting serious work done on this story as well as Shattered. In this chapter you can look forward to more sleuthing (both on campus and from Bayport) as well as even more drama regarding Ryan and Nancy.

"Who could've done this?"

Nancy and Joe sat in two chairs outside the dean's office, waiting to explain what had happened. After Joe had discovered the bloody room he had immediately called Nancy and rushed over to the next building over to grab Mr. Cochran. He had been dismissed to go to sports practice, and when he returned to his room it was cleaned up, with a new set of sheets on the bed and a new curtain. A note was posted on the door to go straight to Dean King's office.

"I don't know, maybe our perp?" Joe replied in a sarcastic tone. "The question we should be asking is, was this done because they know we're involved, or just because I'm new or something?"

Nancy was about to reply, then hesitated. "Joe, let me put forth a scenario for you to consider."

"Okay?" Joe was a bit concerned about the tone in Nancy's voice. Typically he didn't like whatever followed that voice.

"Say that our saboteur knows who we are," Nancy started. "In that case, while I wouldn't suggest going around telling everyone who we are, do you think it would be fine to tell certain people the truth about us?"

Joe groaned. "Nancy, you've got to get your mind off Ryan. He's a suspect, but worse, he's a distraction. I need you focused on this because I can't rely on all my information to come from my brother, who happens to have a concussion and isn't even in the region."

"But why is there a problem with it!?" Nancy almost yelled. "Because whether you like it or not, my focus isn't really going to hone back in anytime soon unless I can get the air clear with Ryan."

"So now you're blackmailing me for your help to get what you want in your relationship?" Joe sounded irate. "I never thought you would stoop that low Nancy, especially if you consider the fact that the blood in my room had to come from somewhere."

Just then the door to the dean's office opened and Queen King stepped out. "I'd appreciate if you drop the old married couple bickering and become professional when you enter my office," she said icily.

When the two were seated she moved behind her desk and turned towards them, flicking her gaze from one to the other without speaking for a minute. Finally she sat in her chair and pulled it up to the desk.

"I've just finished talking on the phone with Gordon. He has brought the shade to Maria Hyde so that she may run tests on the substance found in your room in order to confirm whether or not it is indeed blood as you believe." She kept her eyes on Joe. "Now that you can realize how serious this situation is, I believe you will stop fooling around and actually get some work done on this case before someone is killed, if it hasn't happened yet."

Joe was tempted to throw a snarky comment at the older woman but bit his tongue to keep from lashing out.

"Now Mr. Hardy, you are free to leave my office. I'd suggest you take a shower considering the odor you are giving off from your practice. Ms. Drew, I have further matters to discuss with you." The dean waved towards the door, which Joe took as his sign to leave. Shooting a look at Nancy with his back turned to the dean, Joe exited the room.

"Ms. Drew." Dean King stared unblinking at the girl detective, and Nancy had to fight a shiver given the cold glare and the air conditioner running in the window. "I would like to discuss your punishment for your rule-breaking. Considering the fact that both you and Mr. Santiago seem to be at an impasse I believe it would be best for you two to serve your detentions together. Gordon will oversee your detentions which will take place tomorrow and the day after. A call has also been made to both of your guardians to inform them of these issues. You are dismissed." Without another word Nancy slipped out of the office while Queen King pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed a number.

Frustrated by the combination of Ryan, Joe, and ultimately the dean, Nancy decided she would go for a swim to clear her head and get her thoughts straightened out. She headed back to her dorm, slipped into a bathing suit while adding her winter clothes on top, and made her return to the administration building.

After about 10 minutes of swimming laps, Nancy got out to head for the hot tub. She almost slipped back into the pool in shock.

"We need to talk," Ryan said, sitting next to the waterfall which cascaded into the hot tub. Despite the fact that Nancy was furious at him and his ignorance, she still admitted that he looked quite attractive shirtless.

"What is there to talk about?" she shot back. "You think I'm betraying you, and I know it isn't true, but you're acting immature about it anyways. End of story."

Ryan motioned to Nancy to sit with him in the hot tub, but Nancy remained standing. "Listen, Nancy, I know that I've been acting stupidly. And I'm sorry about that. I know I should be trusting you, but it seemed all the clues pointed to what I suspected."

Nancy stood there for a minute, then took a deep breath and settled into the hot tub next to Ryan. "I have something to tell you, too."

At that very moment, Joe was being assaulted.

"Ack! Get off me!" he cried out, throwing whoever was behind him off his back and onto his bed, all while trying to keep the towel from his shower around his waist.

"Ha! I got you good." Phil rolled off the bed and onto the floor before popping up to his feet.

"Jeez, dude, you scared me half to death," Joe said, half angry and half amused. "I've already been freaked out enough today."

"I know," Phil said, eyes wide. "It's all over campus. Was it actually blood or was that an exaggeration by everyone? You know how rumors spread," he added.

Joe shrugged. "Apparently they're getting Mrs. Hyde to run some tests on it to see exactly what it is. All I know is that it looked like blood to me."

"That's crazy," Phil said. "Oh right, I almost forgot the reason I came in here. Do you have a copy of the chemistry assignment we got today?"

Joe made his way over to his desk, trying not to drip water along the floor. "Yeah, it's right here," he said, pulling it out of his binder. "But I only have the one, so why don't you go down the hall to make a copy while I get changed?"

"Sure thing," Phil replied, before heading out of the room. Joe quickly finished drying off and threw on some sweatpants and a t-shirt before the other teen got back.

"Here you go."

Joe took his paper back. "Thanks man. I may need your help with Calc later, so will you be around?"

"Should be." Phil nodded to emphasize his point, before letting himself out of the room. Joe sat at his desk and took out his laptop. One e-mail had arrived since he had last checked it. It was from Maria Hyde, forwarded to Joe and Nancy by the dean.

 _Hi Suzanne,_

 _It looks like the substance you asked me to test from Mr. Hardy's room is indeed blood. However, judging from the fact that there were nuclei present in the red blood cells, it looks like it is more likely than not that the blood came from another animal, rather than a human. I will continue running other tests to try to determine exactly what animal this blood may have come from._

 _Maria_

Joe sat back in relief. If the blood was animal blood, it meant nobody had been killed. He pulled out his phone and called Frank. After three rings his brother picked up.

"Joe! What's going on there?" His brother sounded worried, and Joe couldn't blame him.

"Well, I got a rather interesting surprise in my room today." He proceeded to describe the situation to his brother, explaining the blood, the dean's response, and the results from the testing.

"Well, you've had quite the day," Frank commented once Joe had finished. "I'll try to limit the details for mom. Now, here's something I just thought of. Let's pretend that Mrs. Hyde comes back and says that the blood is indeed animal blood. Well, that had to come from somewhere. If it came from the wild, then you should be able to find traces of blood on the snow around wherever it was killed. It may take a lot of searching, but it could provide some valuable information."

"True," Joe agreed. "And if they brought the animal inside, then perhaps the room of the student or faculty would have traces of blood."

"Faculty?" Frank inquired.

Joe sighed. "I mean, probably not. None of the teachers Nancy or I have encountered have seemed to have any motive to shut down the school, but you never know. The other thing is that the dean seems to keep calling us out. Maybe she thinks of it as a strategy to get us to solve the case faster, which won't happen, but perhaps other motives should be considered."

"Well, while you're busy in class tomorrow, I'll try to get some information compiled on everyone who works at the school," Frank suggested. "Keep me updated, and let me know if your search for the spot where the animal was killed provides any info. Talk to you later."

"Thanks bro," Joe said before he hung up. With his stomach growling, Joe decided a trip to the dining hall was in order.

The next day, Nancy and Joe got together during their block off to go on a hunt.

"We have a lot of ground to cover," Nancy remarked grimly, "if we are going to search all of campus and the area around it. And don't forget I have to go serve a detention once this block is over."

"Well," Joe pointed out, "we don't have to search the super-populated sections of campus since the blood on the snow would've been discovered by then. So we go to the parts of campus where no one really goes." The two started walking, first around the back of the buildings, then around the sports facilities, but they could find no signs of blood anywhere.

"Perhaps it's buried," Joe said dejectedly.

"There was a lot of blood, though. I'd think if the animals were small enough to be killed, then there may have been the need to kill more to get enough blood to make a point," Nancy mused.

"What are you guys doing?" Both heads turned to see Ryan heading up the hill. When he got close enough so he didn't have to shout, he continued, "Doing some sleuthing about that blood from the bed?"

Joe turned to Nancy. "He just said sleuthing. Is there a reason he said sleuthing? Please tell me there isn't." The look the female detective gave him in return told him everything.

"What?" Ryan asked, looking at Joe's hard stare.

"Nothing. It just seems my partner has been going around giving away our secrets without getting approval from me."

"Oh, so now I need approval from you to do things?" Nancy said, exasperated. "Joe, you need to chill. Ryan is an extra person to help, an extra brain to pick."

"Yeah, and an extra suspect who we need to hope doesn't tamper with anything we find while he's around," Joe countered. "Nancy, anyone on this campus who's been around since the beginning of the school year is a suspect, and that includes Ryan. At least I can trust my brother to keep his secret identity a secret."

Nancy's gaze turned furious. "Joseph Hardy, you have crossed the line when you insult my ability to be a detective and solve mysteries. As I recall I have had countless success stories which I did myself, without leaning on my big brother to help me."

Her comment stung Joe. "Well, perhaps you should've known better than to get romantically involved with a suspect, if you're a better detective than me. Now, why don't you and Ryan go serve your detentions together, while I go do boring detective work which probably won't turn up anything because I'm terrible." With that, Joe spun around and stalked down the path to the administration building. (2114, 18,117)

I hope you all liked this chapter. We're about at the halfway point, and our detectives have only been present for four days! Hard to believe, right? But it's true. I am looking forward to hearing what you thought about this chapter from your reviews. Please also favorite and follow if you enjoy reading this! Get ready for the next chapter, too, because the drama on campus is only going to increase, and some interesting clues will be found that ought to get your minds going even more than they already were. Thanks for being awesome!


	9. A Visitor

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** I must say, you guys are getting a treat! The inspiration for this chapter has been flowing much more than my other story, so I decided to focus my efforts on this and then focus back on that when my head wasn't spinning with plot twists and clues. I think I'll keep this intro short so you can jump right into the reading. Hope you all enjoy Chapter 9!

A short while later, a certain someone entered the room. Walking in and turning towards one of the windows, they kept an eye out, but nobody came by.

Quickly they moved to the vials that contained the red liquid. The blood was the key, and a dangerous one at that. Grabbing a pair of latex gloves, the criminal lifted the vials in their hands, and one by one drained them in the sink. Then, moving to the doorway, they peered out into the hallway. The coast was clear. Setting the tubes down just inside the doorway, a tissue box was taken and used to slowly crush the glass until it shattered. Replacing the tissues and carefully avoiding the glass, the perp stepped out of the classroom and closed the door. That would teach Maria Hyde what happened to those who got involved. Reaching a trash can, the gloves were removed and placed in the garbage, before the person pulled out their cell phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey. I finished that up. What do you suggest we do now?"

"We can't be too aggressive," the voice on the other end warned. "This will send another strong message. And if it still doesn't get through... then we'll talk."

Meanwhile, Joe sat across from Nancy in Mr. Cochran's room. Despite Nancy's insistence that she was fine, Joe had dismissed Ryan anyways and gotten an empty room after the two had served their detention. Mr. Cochran seemed to understand that the two wanted to have a private conversation and decided to "make some photocopies" at the other end of the building.

"Alright, we're going to get Frank in on this conversation, too," Joe started, pulling out his phone. After two rings, Frank picked up.

"Hey Joe," Frank said.

"Frank, you're on speakerphone," Joe told his brother. "I'm in an empty room with Nancy because we need to start putting some puzzle pieces together. And," he added, with a glance at the other detective, "some boyfriend advice."

"Why are you dragging me into this?" Frank groaned.

"Yeah, why are you dragging him into this?" Nancy asked incredulously. "This is between me and Ryan."

"If he weren't a suspect, I wouldn't have a problem with it," Joe countered. "It also doesn't help that you went behind my back to tell him all about our undercover operation."

Nancy gaped at him. "I talked to you about that. Do you not remember?"

"Oh I remember," Joe replied scathingly. "I also remember my reply, which I believe was, in no unclear terms, absolutely not. And you still go and freaking blow our cover."

"Would both of you shut up?" Frank shouted. Neither Nancy nor Joe had realized how loud they had been getting, and the silence was deafening following Frank's outburst.

"I know both of you are frustrated with each other," the detective said over the phone. "Joe, I understand the fact that you are pissed about Nancy's behavior. But you've been spending too much time focusing on that rather than the case. And Nancy, you need to keep in mind why you're at the school. Your room and board is being paid for by the school, so it is your responsibility to make work your top priority."

Frank's statements were followed by more silence. Both teens in Mr. Cochran's room looked around uncomfortably, not making eye contact. Finally, when no one spoke, Frank picked up the conversation again.

"Okay then. You still there? Let's actually start on the case now. Did you guys find anything relating to that blood?"

"There was no sign anywhere of dead animals," Joe replied. "I think there's a possibility that if an animal was murdered out somewhere outside, they were smart enough to turn over the snow so that any traces were covered even from the closest observation."

"Yeah, it was a bit of a dead end," Nancy agreed. "I think rather than trying to figure out who did it, is there anyone we can eliminate from our list of suspects?"

"That would be a good starting point. Let me grab some paper." Frank could be heard rustling around in the background before he returned to the phone. "It would be easier to type this but I've already been chewed out by both Mom and Dad today for using the laptop too much. Anyways, list off who we have for suspects."

Joe thought for a moment. "Well, for guys we have Ryan and Phil. Also Sergio, though he's been gone since he was suspended."

Nancy held up a finger. "But he lives in the area, doesn't he? And I know he has his license. It could've been possible for him to make the return trip."

Joe shrugged. "I'd say it's unlikely simply because it would be in broad daylight. Someone would have to see him. The chances of him being able to get some blood and then plant it in my room without anyone noticing him are low. After all, everyone knows him, whether they like him or not."

"But we can't say it's impossible," Frank concluded. "So for now we'll keep him on the list, just maybe on the lower end."

Joe looked around before continuing. "I think that including the dean on the list wouldn't be a bad idea."

"And why is that?" Frank inquired. "After all, she did hire us to take the case."

Nancy tilted her head to the side, thinking. "But maybe she did that because she figured that it would be easier to continue these accidents with three amateur detectives rather than the police swarming all over."

"Plus she can view almost anywhere on campus," Joe added.

"But what about when the pot hit me?" Frank countered. "She was in a meeting with Joe at that time."

"And Phil and Ryan were both with me on the opposite end of campus," Nancy added excitedly. "That leaves our suspect list rather short."

"True. I can think of three left," Joe said. "Natalie, Louise, and Phil Grady, Sr. That's a pretty nice list to be working with."

Mr. Cochran popped his head in the doorway, making Nancy and Joe both jump. "Hey guys, sorry to bother you, but something's come up. They need me over at the science center. Another incident it sounds like. Could you just lock the door when you leave?"

The two detectives exchanged a glance. "Hey Frank, we're gonna go now. We'll talk later though, okay?" Joe said.

"Keep me informed," Frank replied before ending the call.

At that point the teacher had already left, so Nancy flicked the lights off and exited into the hall, followed by Joe, who closed the door behind him.

"Joe, I think it would be better if we split up here," Nancy told him. "I'd like to go see the dean and see if she'll allow me access to the room Natalie and Louise live in. Probably not, but it's worth a shot if it means there is a chance we can find some incriminating evidence on one of our suspects."

"And I'll go see what's up at the science center," Joe added. "Keep your phone on so if I need to get in touch with you. Although maybe leave it on vibrate in case you end up in a dumpster again."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind," Nancy said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. She departed in one direction and Joe took the other. Seeing the swarm of kids around the door to the science center and the ambulance that sat nearby, Joe took a route around the other side of the building, where he saw the dean sitting with several other staff members.

Knocking on the window, all the heads in the room turned to Joe outside. Mr. Cochran, who was seated closest to the window, opened it.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"Gordon, it's fine. Let the boy in," the dean commanded. Joe squeezed his way in, fully aware that every eye in the room was upon him. "I think it's time you all should know," the dean addressed the room of teachers. "Nancy Drew and Joe Hardy were both hired to attend this school in order to determine the cause of the accidents – no, the attacks – that have happened at the boarding school. The information regarding the case was on a need-to-know basis, and none of you needed to know." Joe could see a bit of coldness in most of the faces present. "Now I feel it is time for us as staff to work alongside these two, as well as Frank Hardy, who was also hired but promptly released after his injury. Mr. Hardy, Mr. Cochran will escort you upstairs."

The history teacher stood up, shot a quick glance towards Joe and the dean, and moved to the door, which he opened for Joe. The teen stepped into the hallway and the teacher followed.

"Well, I must say I'm not surprised," Mr. Cochran said.

"Why not?" Joe asked, a bit taken aback. "Did we blow our cover in some way with you?"

The burly man laughed. "Please. You two kept it under wraps pretty well from students and staff alike. That meeting you had today was a bit suspicious, though."

"So what exactly is going on anyways?" Joe inquired.

"Well, someone left some shards of glass right just inside the door to Mrs. Hyde's room."

Joe was confused. "But Mrs. Hyde was in the room with the teachers. Who stepped on it?"

"Well, I hate to break it to you," Mr. Cochran said, "but it was Phil Grady."

Joe's eyes widened. "You're kidding! But we have a track meet coming up!"

Mr. Cochran nodded. "If you want my opinion, though, it wasn't meant for Phil. He was supposed to be meeting with Mrs. Hyde to retake a quiz, but Mrs. Hyde was held up. I also noticed that there was no sign of the test tubes that contained the blood."

"Huh. Interesting," Joe said. "I'll take a look around if the paramedics are all set."

By the time the two reached Mrs. Hyde's room the paramedics were gone. Joe crouched down in the doorway to take a look at the remaining glass.

"I'm assuming the paramedics cleaned up all the glass that was bloody or contaminated," Joe mentioned to Mr. Cochran. Taking a quick picture with his phone, Joe carefully observed where he stepped as he entered the room1731.

The first thing he noticed was that there were some empty test tube racks. The test tubes were nowhere to be seen.

"Joe, technically I don't think I'm supposed to leave you up here on your own, but this is your show," Mr. Cochran told him. "I'm just going to chill out here in the hallway and do some paperwork."

"Sounds good." Joe moved to the sink. "So it looks like our saboteur made their first mistake," he said to himself. Grabbing a latex glove and a paper towel, he carefully swabbed up a trace of the red liquid still sitting in the sink. "Someone forgot to run the water after they dumped these samples."

Joe moved to the cabinet next to the cabinet and grabbed a small container, dropping the paper towel in before sealing it and disposing of the glove. He did a quick take of the room, and after completely sweeping it from top to bottom, found no more clues.

"I guess this will suffice." Holding the container in one hand and his phone in the other, Joe hopped his way out into the hallway, where Mr. Cochran sat in a chair he'd pulled from another room, writing away.

Looking up, the teacher said, "Are you all set?" Joe showed him the container and nodded. "Alright. Let's head back downstairs."

While Joe collected evidence, Nancy was walking at a rather brisk pace across campus to the girls dorms. She felt a bit bad for Mr. Tyler, who she hoped wouldn't notice the missing master key which allowed access to all student rooms that typically sat on his desk.

Moving to the second floor of dorms, Nancy glanced around to make sure the coast was clear. Knocking on the door, she hoped there would be no response. Her cover story wasn't one of her best, but it would suffice if Natalie or Louise opened the door.

When after a minute no response came, Nancy slid the master key into the door. Hearing a click, she pushed the door inwards, making sure to close it gently behind her. The room was similar to the one she shared with her roommate, with slightly different decor. It was a rather plain room, with nondescript sheets and comforters and no posters on the walls. The only things that seemed to personalize the room were the two desks, which had large mirrors set upon them and several containers of various makeup products surrounding them.

Suddenly she heard giggling out in the hallway, and the sound of a card sliding into the reader that locked and unlocked the door. Nancy looked around before rapidly diving under the bed on the left. She just pulled her legs under when the door swung open, and two sets of feet appeared in the room. The door closed, and instantly the giggling stopped.

"Listen, you've got to stay absolutely silent while you're here." That was Natalie. "If you don't I will kill you before anyone else gets a chance. Understand?" There was silence. "Good. There's a commotion over at the science center that I have to go check in on. I'll see you later."

"Yep." Nancy's eyes widened. The second person in the room was Sergio!

She watched as the high heels exited the room, but the other set of feet kicked off their shoes and Sergio sat on the bed. Nancy cringed. She was going to be stuck for awhile. (2311, 20,428)

I know, that took a lot longer than I expected. I ended up splitting the work between this story and my other one (which is almost complete and should hopefully be out by the end of the week). I thank you all for your patience, and please review to help me improve my writing, and make sure to follow and favorite if you love this story!


	10. An Alcove

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** I would like to sincerely apologize for the delay in this! Last Monday I was on a roll having written most of the chapter when my browser crashed, and the writing was gone. Some of you who also write probably understand where I was coming from, but I was so unmotivated to write the whole chapter over again after all the hard work and thought went to waste. Finally I stepped back up to the plate and churned this out. I think in the end it was good because I got to restructure some parts I wasn't too happy with, but it was definitely frustrating. I hope you all enjoy Chapter 10 after such a long wait!

Joe ran into Ryan on his way back to the room.

"Hey, what's up, Joe?"

The blond teen really had no interest in associating with Ryan due to how things stood between him and Nancy, but he decided it would look impolite if he ignored him. He jogged over to where Ryan was, his coat swishing with every arm motion.

"Did you hear about what happened?" Joe inquired of him.

"Dude, how could I not?" Ryan replied. "This is absolutely terrible. How is this gonna affect his track abilities? Everybody loves Phil, or at least respects him."

"Well, I don't think this attack was focused on him," Joe told Ryan. "It seems like the target was Mrs. Hyde. It was her room, after all, and she was supposed to be there before Phil."

Ryan stopped walking and looked at Joe. "I'm not so sure."

Joe returned the gaze inquisitively. "What aren't you sure about? That Mrs. Hyde was the target and Phil wasn't?"

"Remember the chandelier incident?"

"How could I not?" Joe said. "It was the reason we came here."

At this point the two boys had begun walking again and ended up in front of the administration building. "Let's go inside and I'll show you how the chandelier incident played out," Ryan suggested.

Entering the lobby, Ryan pulled Joe to the side, right next to the swimming pool. "This is about where I was, and I was talking to Liam." Then he pointed upwards. "The chandelier made a really loud cracking noise, and started coming down in the middle of the room."

Joe was confused. "But you and Liam were out of the way. So how did it come down and break Liam's legs?"

"Because Liam was the only one who reacted fast enough, ran to the middle of the room, and pushed Phil out of the way."

Joe's mind was overloading with this new information. "So is it possible someone is targeting Phil?" He thought back to his conversation with Mr. Cochran earlier that day. "He did have a test scheduled with Mrs. Hyde. In other words, it wasn't just a drop-in visit. Somebody must have known that he had a makeup test scheduled for around that time. Of course, if that were the case, they would have to understand that they could hit Mrs. Hyde as well."

"Maybe they were okay with that," Ryan pointed out. "I mean, isn't she helping you guys? It could be that they saw the prime opportunity to strike out at either target. It would make the attack a success either way."

Both boys jumped as the door slammed open. "Heads will roll on this one!" Phil Grady, Sr. roared as he hobbled in with his cane. He squinted at the boys, then said, "You're such a good friend Ryan. Good job being there for Phil while he's in the FREAKING HOSPITAL!"

Joe was taken aback at the man's attitude. He thought Nancy had been exaggerating just a tad when she told him about Phil's father.

CRASH! Joe and Ryan both jumped and their friend's father swore loudly at the large bowl that now lay in pieces on the floor. "Great!" he yelled. "Nice to see that they keep the structural integrity of this place strong. No wonder the chandelier came down!"

"Mr. Grady!" All three turned to see Dean King storm through the door. "I will not accept you destroying school property like that!"

"How the hell is the bowl my fault at all!?" Mr. Grady raged.

"We can discuss this in my office." Dean King flashed her Queen glare at the man, who seemed to ignore it, complaining loudly to her all the way up the stairs until Joe and Ryan heard the door to Queen King's office close.

Both teens were silent for a moment. "Wow," Joe finally said. "I'd pay to see a fight between those personalities."

"No, I don't think you'd want to," Ryan answered. "There can be a lot of collateral damage when they lock horns. Just ask Phil once he's back in the swing of things."

"It's nice that Queen King thought to pick up the bowl," Joe observed, pointing to the shards still sitting on the floor.

"Yeah, well, I don't really blame her," Ryan commented, "considering the problem that's sitting in her office right now."

Joe walked over to the bowl, then looked up at where it had come from. "Ryan, that alcove is right next to where the pot that hit Frank was sitting."

"Yeah, it sat in that middle alcove that's empty now," Ryan pointed out.

Joe had an idea pop into his head. "Do you think Queen King is distracted enough so that she won't look at her cameras, if there are any in here?"

"I think you're fine. What are you thinking about?" Ryan asked him.

"I'm going to step on the table and then jump up and try to latch onto one of the alcoves so I can see inside and take a better look," Joe explained.

"Don't fall," Ryan advised as Joe walked over and stood on the small table, testing that it could hold his weight before stepping up.

"Thanks, you're oh so helpful," Joe retorted. He swung his body down and with all his might powered upwards, towards the third alcove. He grabbed the ledge tight with his hands and then pulled himself up onto his elbows, latching himself in place by locking his elbows on the sides of the alcove. He looked around inside. "It looks like there are some issues with the structure." He turned himself slightly and carefully in order to see inside the next alcove.

"Ryan, reach up and grab my phone out of my pocket." The dark-haired teen complied. "Now unlock it; the password is 7823." Joe made a mental note to change it later. "Open up the camera for me. I'm going to reach down slowly and I want you to hand the phone to me once it's set up." The blond slowly pulled one of his arms out, waited for a second as his right arm shook under the pressure of holding his entire body up, then let his left drop to his side. Ryan put the phone in his hand and he pulled it up, quickly snapping a few pics of each alcove. "Now I'm going to hand it back down to you." Joe let his arm drop again with the phone, just in time for the plaster under his right arm to let go and send him tumbling to the floor.

Nancy kept her breathing nice and deep. If she started taking shallow or super large breaths she knew she would be heard by the other occupant of the room. It had been an hour since she had ducked under the bed, but luckily for her, it seemed her "companion" was drifting off to sleep. After a few more minutes, she started the hear snoring, causing her to slowly stick her head out like a turtle coming out of it's shell. Sure enough, Sergio was flopped across the bed, eyes closed with a tad of drool on the corner of his mouth. Removing her boots, Nancy tiptoed across to the door, opening it slowly so as to prevent the clicking of the lock from waking the teen on the bed. Looking both ways before stepping out, Nancy replaced her boots onto her feet and rushed out of the building in the direction of where Joe had been headed.

A small crowd was still present at the science building but it seemed they were in packs discussing the events of the day in hushed whispers. Whatever had happened was clearly over. Looking around at the crowds, she saw Matt and Bryan with a couple friends standing right next to the building.

"Hey Matt! Hey Bryan!" She jogged over to where they were. "What happened here?"

The four boys there looked at her like she had three heads. "You didn't hear?" Bryan said. "Even I heard, and everyone knows I don't know what goes on here on campus."

"I've been a little busy," Nancy countered. "I've been in the girls dorm for awhile, and haven't been out since my detention."

"Whoa, you got a detention? Cool," Matt replied.

"Um, I don't know what word I would use to describe it, but cool would not be one of them," Nancy pointed out. Feeling her phone buzz, she looked down to look at the caller ID. It was Frank. "Excuse me, guys." Pressing the green button, she answered the phone.

"What's going on Frank?"

"Do I have some information for you!" Then he lowered his voice. "Whoops, I forgot Mom was sleeping. Hopefully that didn't wake her up."

"Frank, I'd like that information rather than you talking to yourself," Nancy said lightheartedly.

"Well, this may not have anything to do with the case, but I was doing some research along the teacher path. Like, to see if any of them might have something from the past to motivate them."

"And what did you find?" Nancy inquired.

"Looking back through the newspaper articles online from the papers up in Maine, it seems that the school was hit for discrimination about a decade ago. Turns out that several students were not allowed into the school despite having received higher test scores than others. There wasn't a specific discrimination. Kids of all years, genders, and races were held out. The matter was settled outside of the court system which is why it wasn't nationally publicized."

Nancy happened to notice Mr. Cochran walking back to his building with Mr. Tyler. "And I think I know who was the dean back then, too, considering she seems a little ancient."

"Yep, you got it." Frank paused for a second. "Reading from the article, it says that Suzanne King was thought to be the main source of the problem as the dean of the school."

"Frank, you're awesome. I need to go do a little snooping on this matter but I'll call you when I finish."

"Alright. I've got a doctor's appointment in about 20 minutes so if you get done pretty soon then could you wait until after dinnertime to call?"

Nancy laughed. "Will do. See ya." Ending the conversation, Nancy hurried to the building between the girls dorm and the science building. Walking at a brisk pace, Nancy soon turned into Mr. Cochran's room, where he was sitting at his desk.

"Hey Mr. Cochran."

"Hey, Mrs. Super Spy Private Eye. Like that rhyme there?"

Nancy was caught off guard. "I'm sorry, but I don't follow."

"The dean told the staff about how she brought you and the Hardy Boys in to solve our problem for us. I mean, it makes sense. We all thought she was crazy for not bringing in the police at all. Well, we still think she's crazy, but that's beside the point."

Nancy laughed. "Well then, could you fill me in on what happened?"

After the teacher had told her, she drummed her fingers on his desk. "That's terrible. Poor Phil."

"I feel bad for the kid as a coach. I know how bummed out they can be when they have to miss any time for sports, even when it's just practicing."

"Yeah. Now, on a different matter, I was wondering about my entry exam score."

Mr. Cochran laughed. "I agree, it's a little stupid that you can't mix the junior classes with the senior classes because you should definitely be with the seniors. For history, at least," he added hurriedly.

"So you're saying I got a good enough score to put me in the top tier of history classes?" Nancy inquired.

"Nancy, the scores you had on that part of the exam were pretty good. Now, do I think you'd be at the top of the class, no, I don't think so. But you could've managed the workload and the material well."

Nancy grimaced. "Oh well. Thanks for talking with me."

"Stop back in whenever you desire." Mr. Cochran turned to his filing cabinet as Nancy exited the room.

Nancy made a few different stops. Mr. Tyler and Mrs. Hyde both confirmed her good scores in their respective tests, with Mr. Tyler even pointing out that she would even be one of his top students if she were with the most advanced class. By the end of her trek, it was clear to Nancy that she should not have been placed as a junior. The Queen had forced her to suffer the same fate that those other kids dealt with a decade earlier. The question was, were more kids than just Nancy having the same problem? Was it why Matt couldn't get in until this year?

"Nancy!" Her titian hair flopped around under her hat as she turned her head to see Luna approaching her.

"Girl, we've got a problem. The Queen is about to go all Alice-in-Wonderland with Joe and Ryan. As in, off with their heads."

"What do you mean?" Nancy was confused.

"I don't know the full details, but they ended up somehow breaking the table in the lobby in the administration building," Luna replied. "She has a short temper with Joe, but Ryan? There's word the dean is considering expelling him." (2215, 22,643)

Ooh, lots of new information! Guess what? We only have six more chapters and then this story is DONE! :O I really appreciate all the support you guys have given me. So in return, I'll give you more clues, more mystery, and more suspense. We're just a few chapters away from discovering the culprit (or is it culprits?) behind these incidents, so get your two cents worth in soon in the review section. Also, please favorite and follow to show your amazingly awesome support!


	11. A Discovery

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** Hey, look what arrived. Some of the information in this chapter is stuff that was in my draft of the previous chapter before it got deleted, so it's right in the front of my mind. Also, there are some revelations involving certain characters, a new location on campus will be explored, and the intensity will kick up about three notches. We're getting close to the end here, so get ready. Here's the 11th chapter.

Where was Nancy?

Frank rested on his bed, eyes closed and laptop open next to him. His phone sat on the nightstand, unmoving and blank. It was already close to 11 PM, and Frank knew that Nancy didn't leave him or Joe in the dark except on rare occasions. Even if she came up with nothing, she would let them know if the clues led to a dead end. The lack of a call or even a quick text disturbed the teen.

Ten minutes later, his phone started dancing on the table. Almost leaping out of bed, Frank grabbed the device and swiped to accept the call.

"Nancy! What's up?"

"Yo Frank. It's Luna. Whatcha up to?"

Frank was confused and concerned. "Why are you calling from Nancy's phone?"

Luna laughed. "Dude, don't you have Caller ID? I'm calling from my phone. I heard about the little side business you two got going with your bro. That's cool. Anyways, Nancy told me to call you. She's busy right now starting a war."

"Say what now? I'm lost," Frank admitted.

"Well, thanks to her and Ryan and Joe there's a full-blown political war erupting between the staff members. Turns out Nancy was placed a grade lower than she should have been because the Queen has been corrupting the school so now some of the teachers are outraged that this problem surfaced again. I guess it happened in the past, too? Oh, and by the way, both Joe and Ryan got expelled from the school after they broke a table and tore off part of the wall in the administration building."

Frank's head was spinning. "Wait, Joe got expelled?"

"Yeah. He and Ryan and currently with Queen King. And Nancy and Mr. Cochran and fragile Mr. Tyler and leading the charge against a slew of teachers. I don't really know what's happening. It's a bit of a free-for-all, to be honest." Luna paused, and Frank could hear someone shouting in the background. "Why the hell is Phil, Sr. here? Anyways, that's the deal. Talk to you later!"

"Wait, Luna —" Frank started, but the girl had already hung up. Frank groaned and laid back on his bed. Joe had been expelled, Nancy was destroying all the staff relations, and the throbbing in his head was exceptionally bad. Finally he got up and went downstairs to where his father sat watching TV in the living room.

"Frank! What are you doing up?" Mr. Hardy said with a surprised tone.

"It's only just past 11," Frank rebutted.

"And you have a concussion," his father countered. "You need as much sleep as you can get."

"Well, it sounds like things are really falling apart in Maine right now," Frank informed him. "I just got a call from one of the girls who goes to school up there and she just told me that Joe and Nancy's boyfriend broke school property and also peeled back a wall or something so now they're being expelled. But at the same time, Nancy discovered that the corruption that I was telling you about, how some kids were excluded from the school or bumped down grade levels unfairly, happened to her. So now she's got some of the teachers up in arms about it."

Mr. Hardy took a moment before replying. "This sounds pretty bad. I know you won't want to hear this, but at this point, it may be smarter to pull Nancy and Joe out of there and encourage the dean to bring in the police. It seems like Joe has put himself in a bad position if he destroyed school property, and he's on his way out anyways. With Nancy's cover blown, and her starting this whole issue with corruption up there again, it would be too dangerous to keep her there alone."

Frank knew his father was right, but he didn't want all the hard work the three had put in to be in vain. "Maybe. I just don't know right now."

"Well, get some sleep and think about it on as fresh of a mind as you can muster tomorrow morning," Mr. Hardy advised. "For now, you can't do much for them in this fight. They're on their own."

Joe and Ryan opened the door to find Luna waiting for them.

"Well, it's official. We're gone," Ryan said bitterly. "I can't believe this."

"Hate to burst your bubble," Luna replied, "but you guys sorta kinda took away a piece of the wall. That's called destruction of school property."

"But it's actually got me thinking," Joe spoke up. "It seems that the whole group of alcoves was unstable. Heck, even just the banging of the door as it opened sent part of it crumbling. So what if the pot that hit Frank wasn't actually an attack?"

The other two stopped walking. "You think it was an accident?" Luna asked skeptically.

"What about the matching pot, though?" Ryan pointed out. "When the group of us went to look, the other pot in the set was missing from in front of the library."

"I'm thinking someone may have taken advantage of the accident, if that's what it was, and made it seem like an obvious attack." The three started walking again. "Where's Nancy?"

"Oh yeah," Luna piped up, "I forgot to tell you about that little situation."

Both boys turned their heads to look at her as they walked out the front door.

Instantly they heard a stampede, and looked quickly in front of them. Nancy, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Tyler, Mrs. Hyde, Matt, Bryan and a slew of other students and staff began filtering in through the doors. "This is where we turn around and go back inside," Luna said, joining the ranks of the people streaming into the administration building.

"What the hell is all this?" Ryan asked, straining to be heard over the chatter coming from the students and teachers.

He was a sight for Nancy's sore eyes, but she was on a mission. The titian-haired detective followed Mr. Cochran and Mr. Tyler up the stairs while Mrs. Hyde and the other teachers stayed behind to contain the crowd that had joined them on their way to the administration building.

Reaching the door to the dean's office, Mr. Cochran opened it and stormed in, followed by Nancy and Mr. Tyler. The latter two took seats across from the Queen, while Mr. Cochran stood between them, arms folded.

"And to what do I owe the pleasure, and the disrespect?" Nancy noticed a momentary lapse in the façade the Queen kept up.

"Oh I don't think you should be talking to us about disrespect!" Mr. Cochran slammed down a manila folder with as much force as he could muster on the desk in the center of the room. "This is a collection of all of the portions of the entry exams for not only current Junior, Nancy Drew, but also for several other students that we as a staff have found to exceed the level in which they were placed. I think you need to explain yourself, Dean King."

"I need to explain myself, do I?" All of the emotionless face the dean had kept was swept away in a fit of fury. "As the dean, I reserve the right to place students in certain tiers of difficulty as I see fit. Ms. Drew, I'm most surprised that you had the audacity to question my judgement. Perhaps you have forgotten the fact that this is an elite school?"

Mr. Cochran was about to speak again but Mr. Tyler waved him off. "Suzanne, I do believe you have run this school in a successful manner, but it seems rather strange that these tests don't line up with the end result. The fact of the matter is that Ms. Drew managed to score in the fourth tier on all but one of her exams, making her a senior by school rules. All we're looking for is an explanation behind why this mistake might have been made."

The Queen's eyes bounced from Mr. Tyler to Mr. Cochran and finally down to Nancy. "I used the executive power given to me by the staff and decided that Nancy was not ready for being a senior here. After all, she had other priorities to focus on, though at this point it's clear that her attention has been elsewhere, for the most part."

"You don't seem to realize how close we are to catching whoever is behind all of this," Nancy countered. "Maybe if you had been helpful and supplied us with CCTV footage of the times surrounding the incidents then this process may have gone faster."

"Have you been investigating these incidents or me, Ms. Drew? Because it seems you've been snooping where you shouldn't have been."

"I informed her about these cameras assuming that you had been fully cooperative with our investigators," Mr. Cochran spoke up. He had done no such thing, but Nancy was appreciative of the support he was giving her. Because right now it was necessary.

Meanwhile, Joe, Ryan and Luna had made their way back out of the building along with some of the other students after Mrs. Hyde made it abundantly clear that none of the students would be allowed upstairs.

"Hey, you know who I didn't see around in there?" Ryan commented. "Natalie and Louise. Considering that they were the only students here who I didn't notice other than Sergio and Phil, who are suspended and in the hospital, I want to know where they're at."

Luna smacked herself in the face. Hard.

"What was that for?" Joe asked.

"I can't believe I forgot about it!" Luna nearly yelled. "Louise has a drug ring going here on campus and apparently they have a secret place that they meet."

"Where would be safe from Queen King?" Joe wondered.

"You're lucky that Louise pegged me as a druggie when she came here," Luna told him. "Because apparently the fact that I don't do drugs just doesn't match with my personality or my looks."

Ryan grinned. "Well, I guess it's a good thing now, though."

"Look, there she is now." Joe and Ryan followed Luna's finger to where Natalie was standing next to the Harding Science Center. "If Natalie is there, Louise can't be too far."

"Let's hop behind these bushes for now," Joe suggested, ducking around the side of the bush sitting next to the Arts Center. The three watched as Louise came around the side of the building and the girls quickly took off in the direction of the dorms. After waiting a couple minutes to make sure that the pair wouldn't return, Luna jumped out of the hiding spot, leading the way to the science building with Joe and Ryan in tow.

"Around the back. Here we are." Luna opened up a narrow door in the back of the building beside the dumpster, grabbing her phone as a flashlight.

"And you weren't suspicious at all when Louise brought you down here?" Ryan asked incredulously.

Luna shook her head. "I've never been down here before. All she told me was that she could hook me up with some stuff if I went to the Harding Science Center basement via the door next to the dumpster." Descending the stairs, the group reached another door.

"We're going to get in so much trouble for this," Ryan commented.

"Yeah, well, that's how the life of an undercover detective goes," Joe replied. "Plus you don't need to worry, considering we're expelled anyways and all the staff is at the administration building thanks to Nancy's unplanned distraction."

The group was immediately plunged into darkness that even the light of three phones was having trouble piercing. "This is creepy," Luna said somewhere to Joe's right.

"Gets the adrenaline pumping," Ryan said from the left just as his light went out. "Well that sucks."

"That would be why charging your phone is helpful," Luna said through gritted teeth in the dark.

Joe squinted to make out shapes. "Looks like there are some shelves. Also some loose wires and stuff on the floor that look like they belong to lights. Maybe this is an old storage area? Seems a little counterintuitive that it can only be entered from that one door, though. I'm thinking there may be another door out of here."

A large pop echoed throughout the room, followed by a quick scream from Luna. "What was that?"

Joe turned his phone in the direction of the sound. Water was spewing rapidly from a pipe. "It's a pipe that just burst."

Suddenly Luna screamed much louder and longer. "What is it?" Ryan called out from the opposite side of the small room. Joe turned to see what Luna was looking at.

Sergio was laid out on the floor, covered in blood.

"Watch out Luna," Joe said, rushing over to feel for a pulse. There wasn't one. "He's dead. But who could've killed him?"

The door out clanged shut loudly, making all three jump. "It's stuck!" Ryan cried out, trying desperately to open the door while Joe double-checked for a pulse and Luna sat on the ground in tears. All three stopped what they were doing and turned, however, when they heard a crackle. The water had reached the wires. And the wires were live. (2220, 24,863)

Yeah, I know, a lot of things happening! Was I wrong when I told you that I was kicking it up a few notches? For you awesome readers who are interested, I'll be starting up a new mystery story on FictionPress called Strange and Mysterious Happenings. I want to get some feedback from those of you who would be interested in reading it to find out if you'd like to have me make the story interactive in a couple different ways. So, if you feel so inclined, please please PLEASE go let me know via the poll featured at the top of my profile page what you think of the idea. Thanks for being super amazing and please review, follow and favorite if you enjoy this! :)


	12. A Plan

**DISCLAIMER:** None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note:** So I have something that could be received as good news and bad news. I've decided to consolidate the 15th and 16th chapter plotlines into one (rather large) 15th chapter. While yes, the story will be over soon, it means we are approaching the end of this all. Because of this there are only three more (exciting) chapters to go! I hope that you guys love the cliffhangers I leave for you, because guess what? You'll be getting three more! :) Please enjoy Chapter 12.

Nancy sat with Mrs. Hyde and Mr. Cochran in the teacher's lounge on the first floor of the Harding Center. All three were seated around a table, upon which three mugs of hot chocolate were emptied to various points.

"I'm glad that you brought this to our attention, Nancy," Mrs. Hyde assured her. "It seems fairly certain at this point that the dean was abusing her power, and considering it is a repeat offense, it seems that this may be the end of the corruption."

"Unfortunately I have to disagree with you on that point, Maria," Mr. Cochran replied. "Corruption in any system rarely is in one person alone. While I don't really care about what the other teachers think or how involved they are, the Board of Trustees is a different matter."

Both teachers fell silent. Nancy eventually pulled out her phone. "I haven't seen Ryan or Joe or Luna recently. Let's find out what they're up to." Dialing the first number, she found that Ryan's phone went straight to voicemail. "That's weird. He doesn't typically turn his phone off."

"Have those two joined your entourage?" Mrs. Hyde asked the teen.

"I'm not super comfortable with Luna getting the information," Nancy admitted, "but Ryan I trust."

"And you don't think that trust is ill-placed?"

Nancy shot a glance at Mr. Cochran. "What do you mean?"

The man shrugged. "Well, I get the whole boyfriend-and-girlfriend thing you've got going with him, but you did just meet him within the week. I'm sure you've got good instincts, but it happens all too often that a girl is wrong about a guy, or vice versa. And I'm sure he's as much of a suspect as everybody else is."

Nancy rolled her eyes. "Not you, too. Do you realize how many times I've had this lecture?"

"Maybe the fact that you've gotten it so many times should tell you something," Mr. Cochran commented.

The titian-haired girl sighed. She was starting to get why everyone thought she trusted Ryan too much, but her instincts told her it was fine.

"You know," Nancy said, "In all this craziness, I don't think anyone has gone to see Phil in the hospital. He was involved in an incident, so perhaps the next logical step is to go interview him."

"I agree, but the hospital visiting hours are well past over."

"Perhaps I could play the teacher card?" Mr. Cochran and Nancy looked at Mrs. Hyde, who had pulled out a large stack of papers. "Can't be letting the students fall behind, now," she said with a wink. Nancy grinned.

"I guess we need to go pay a visit to your student, then."

As the three left, they were unaware of the very real danger that three teenagers were situated in not too far away.

"That water is moving this way!" Ryan nearly shouted.

"Luna, get back by the door," Joe ordered. "There has to be another way out of here. They would have to build in another way to leave if they wanted the building to meet safety standards."

Joe frantically looked around, swinging his phone around to light up his surroundings. There was no obvious way out, no door or window of any sort.

"Ryan, look around for something that we can use to open that door. Luna, keep an eye on that water and let me know if we need to move."

"Joe, my phone died earlier."

The blond swore. "Well, I don't know then."

"The water is gushing out, Joe." Luna was still sobbing. "It's coming towards us, it's going underneath the shelves, it's everywhere. What will happen if it reaches the generator behind the shelves?"

Joe stopped for a moment, then whipped around to look between the crevices of the shelves to his right. Sure enough, he could see the generator just beyond them.

"Quick, get behind the shelves. This may be our one chance to get out." He shooed the other two in the direction until they were standing right next to the generator.

"Now what?" Ryan moaned. "You just put us closer to something that could turn real dangerous, real fast."

"Ryan, turn off your light."

"My light isn't on. Luna's is."

Joe huffed. "Can someone just turn their damn light off?" The light clicked off, and he did the same. Squinting along the walls he could just barely make out an outline on the one facing the generator, in the corner. Clicking his light on, he pointed in the direction. "See where I'm pointing? Go."

Neither of his compatriots needed another word, scampering over to where he had motioned to. He followed them. Using his light, he found a latch, but when he pulled, nothing happened.

"Why won't it open!?" Luna cried out.

"I don't know," Joe admitted. "How's the water looking?"

"Dangerous."

"Thanks for that oh-so-helpful description." Joe turned back to the task at hand. "Why can't I open this?"

He heard someone behind him facepalm. "Because it isn't a normal door." Joe saw Ryan's hand reach around him and push the door to the side. With a loud crunching sound, the door opened a crack. "Quick, Joe, help me get this open."

Together the two managed to push the door open enough to fit a person through the narrow space. Luna went first, followed by Ryan and finally Joe. All three heaved the door closed and just slumped in the space that they were standing in.

After a moment of silence, Ryan spoke up. "Is your job always this exciting?"

Joe didn't know whether to nod or shake his head, but either way, he didn't feel up to responding.

"Where are we now?" Luna nearly whispered.

Joe pointed to the stairs next to him, which were illuminated by a dim light that hung high above them. "This will probably lead up to one of the janitor closets. And we should get going. While I hate to bring it up, there does happen to be a leak in the other room, along with a dead body." The three headed up the stairs at a snail's pace, exiting the janitor closet (as Joe had expected) and walking out the front door of the building, enjoying the cold weather bringing their sweat to a stop. Looking in the distance Joe spotted Mr. Tyler and Mr. Cochran talking outside the front of their academic building. Luna broke into a sprint and wrapped her arms around Mr. Tyler, immediately breaking down in tears again. Surprised, the teacher hugged her back. Mr. Cochran just had a bewildered look and turned his questioning gaze to Joe and Ryan.

"What happened?"

Joe sighed deeply. "You have to come take a look. And bring a janitor. Also, do you know where Nancy is?"

As he asked, Nancy and Mrs. Hyde made the final turn into the hospital parking lot. Luckily the drive was short, since the school and the hospital were close together on different sides of the city border.

The two had a bit of trouble convincing the nurses on duty to let them see Phil, but they eventually managed to succeed in getting a quick visit with the junior.

"Nancy! Mrs. Hyde! It's good to see you." Phil's face lit up when the two walked into the room.

"Yeah, well, if I recall there was a reason you were coming to my classroom," Mrs. Hyde said. "May I remind you that despite your injury, you still are enrolled in one of the most prestigious schools in the country. So your grades won't be dropping on my watch." Her comment got some unrestrained eye rollage. "But that's just a cover to get Nancy in here to talk to you."

Nancy took a seat next to the bed and, as rapidly as she could, explained her job on campus as well as the major developments that had happened in the short time he was gone.

"So basically you and Joe are super-spy material." Phil grinned. "That's pretty sweet. You guys should teach me some stuff."

"Yeah, well, your days are going to be spent recovering from this and doing homework so you can continue succeeding in the classroom and on the track," Mrs. Hyde interjected. As she said this, Nancy saw the corner of Phil's mouth draw up ever so slightly, before it turned into a smile.

"Why did I just see contempt on your face?" the detective blurted out.

"Wow. You've got some weird voodoo witchcraft going on or something," Phil replied with a laugh.

"Don't dodge the question, Phil. Something's up."

Her sharp tone caused Phil to sigh. "I just don't know how well I'm going to come back from this injury. From what the doctor has told me, I just don't know. Something about the soles of my feet never properly healing. Walking, that will be fine. But they say there's a chance that I won't be able to compete at the level I do with the damage."

"Aw, Phil, I'm sorry," Nancy told him. "That really sucks. But I know that no matter what you're told, you're going to come back in swinging. Last time I checked, Joe said failure wasn't a word in your vocabulary unless it related to a science test."

"And I plan to get it removed from your vocabulary altogether," Mrs. Hyde added. "That science grade will be coming up." Her phone buzzed, and she looked at the caller ID. "Excuse me for a moment. It's Gordon."

Phil smiled. "Yeah, I guess so. At least now I have time to focus on schoolwork."

"Keep up that attitude," Nancy encouraged him. "It'll all work out for you in the end."

The science teacher rejoined them. "Hey Nancy, I think we may want to head back to campus." Nancy exchanged phone numbers with Phil, promising to keep him informed, and left with Mrs. Hyde.

"It seems that the night just got crazier," Mrs. Hyde informed her. "Joe, Ryan and Luna were locked in the boiler room of the Harding Center, it got flooded, a secret hideout for Louise Rivers and her drugs was discovered there, too, and so was the body of Sergio Chandler. How or when he got back on campus I don't know, but it's all going to hell in a handbasket."

"Sergio was found dead?" Nancy repeated. "I just saw him earlier when I was forced to hide in Natalie's room while searching for clues. That creates a very narrow window." She gathered her thoughts for a minute while they got into the car and pulled out of the lot. "With a dead body, the police are going to be swarming the place, which means that if there was ever a time to play the trump card, now's the time to do it."

"The trump card?" Mrs. Hyde asked curiously. She didn't get a response, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Nancy pull out her phone and dial a number.

"Hey, Frank."

"Hey, what's up, Nancy? I was just getting ready to go to bed."

"I really hate to interrupt your night again," Nancy apologized, "but I need your help." She proceeded to update her colleague and outline her plan to the 18-year-old.

"Well, I'll see what I can do," the dark-haired teen responded. "No promises, but I'll text you when I know if this will work out or not."

"Thanks, you're the best. Bye." Nancy hung up just as the car entered the campus. Mrs. Hyde found her usual parking spot near the Harding Center, and the two women hopped out. Already the police had swarmed the scene. Some were entering and exiting a back door to the building, while one officer was with Luna and Ryan and another was talking to Joe. Teachers seemed to be everywhere, though Nancy was surprised to find that there weren't any students in sight. The dean, she noted, was not present.

"Gordon said that after putting in a call to the Board of Trustees, the dean has been put on paid administrative leave, and has been asked to leave campus," Mrs. Hyde told Nancy, as if reading the mind that sat under the titian hair.

"I need to go talk to Joe," Nancy told the instructor. The two parted ways, and Nancy hurried over to her fellow detective, who was just finishing up with his statement to the officer.

"Well, you're a bit out of the loop," Joe told her with a grimace.

"Mr. Cochran told Mrs. Hyde everything over the phone," Nancy replied. "Listen, I decided to take matters into my own hands." She told him about her discussion with Frank.

"I'm not super happy with the plan," Joe let her know, "but at this point it might be the only way we can find who's behind all this. At this point, the police have shut this place down, so we might be better off just trying to get some sleep. If today was any indication, we're in for a wild ride over the next couple days." Right before they said goodbye, Nancy received a text from Frank.

"It looks like we should be all set." Nancy showed Joe the text message. "I guess you're right. See you tomorrow, then."

Joe left the scene in the direction of the boys dormitory, so Nancy worked her way over to her boyfriend and Luna.

"How are you guys doing?" She was met with a long kiss from Ryan, which she returned.

"Pretty terrible, actually," he told her. "Like, that was scary down there."

Nancy hugged him, then Luna. "You guys were with Joe. He knows what he's doing. Not the first time he's been between a rock and a hard place and made it out okay. Now, I know it's been a crazy night, but your bodies need some sleep. So why don't we head back to the dorms together?"

They didn't say a word, but nodded silently, so Nancy helped them up off the ground and trekked to the girls dorms. Making sure Luna got settled in okay, Nancy went back out to the hallway to where Ryan was waiting.

"Do you want me to walk with you over to the boys dorms?" Nancy inquired.

"Well, I don't really want to make you walk back across campus yourself," Ryan responded. "It seems selfish for me to put you in danger with a murderer out there somewhere."

"Can I remind you who's had more experience dealing with murderers here?" Nancy retorted. "Let's go. I'll be fine coming back."

Deciding that Ryan needed a pick-me-up, Nancy told him all about her visit with Phil. Her boyfriend laughed occasionally and so Nancy continued on with her storytelling. Before the pair knew it they had arrived at their destination.

"You know, Nancy," Ryan started as he walked down the hallway towards his room holding her hand, "maybe you should stay here. I don't want you to risk a walk back across campus." The two had reached his room and were standing outside. "Plus I don't really want to go to sleep alone, with Phil gone."

Nancy laughed and shook her head. "You are so not subtle."

Ryan joined in the laughter. "Yeah, I know, it's sad."

"Now, when I say 'go to bed,' I mean to sleep," Nancy scolded him gently. "I'll go get Joe and have him bunk with you."

Nancy kept her promise, and soon was heading back across campus. As she stepped past a rather large shrub next to the Arts Center, a figure jumped out and pressed a cloth to her face. Without a sound or struggle, Nancy fell into the arms of the mystery person. (2612, 27,475)

So, how about that cliffhanger? :) I know, I'm evil. But that's just the way I roll. Three more chapters, and Nancy's plan (whatever it may be) seems like it's a go, so I guess you'll have to wait and see how this all wraps up. Now would be the perfect time for you as super-duper supporters to make all the clues fit together and take a guess at who YOU think the culprit(s) is(are). I'm so happy with how this story is shaping up, and I can give a lot of credit to you guys for keeping me motivated. For the next month or two my schedule gets incredibly busy but with such dedicated readers as you guys I will try my hardest best (yes, I know that's incorrect grammar... it's a common phrase in my family) to keep the posting as consistent as possible. Thank you all for your support! :) Please continue to show these awesome motivational skills you've got by favoriting, following, and reviewing.


	13. A Disappearance

**DISCLAIMER** : None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note** : First off, I must apologize for my lengthy unannounced hiatus. Life got super crazy as school restarted, but I now have much more free time than I did then. My plan is to be able to finish up the story during the lull I have in my schedule right now. As for the chapter... I think it has a lot of interesting developments for sure. Clues abound in this chapter, and it won't be easy to separate fact from fiction. ;) After a four-month break, here is Chapter 13.

The following day, Joe got the memo that the staff and Board of Trustees were having a meeting, causing classes in the morning to be canceled. At about 10:30, it was announced that there was to be an assembly at 11 in the auditorium. After several frustrated texts to Nancy to find out where she was sitting that went unanswered, Joe finally decided to seek out Luna and Ryan. On his way in, however, he was stopped by a teacher and brought backstage, where Mr. Cochran was waiting with two familiar faces.

"Dad! It's good to see you," Joe said, hugging him. "Frank, glad you're back on the case."

"Well the concussion is still pretty bad," Frank ceded as he gave his younger brother a fist bump, "but I really wanted to come up to lend a helping hand. And driving with a concussion isn't typically recommended by doctors."

"Hate to interrupt you guys, but we're about to go out," Mr. Cochran informed them. "Frank, you'd probably be better off staying out of the bright lights."

"Agreed," Frank replied. "I'll see you guys on the flip side."

"Is Nancy coming out with us, too? And do I have to say anything?" Joe asked.

"She hasn't been seen in the building," Mr. Cochran informed him. "And at this point we need to get this going. I think letting your father do most of the talking is a good idea since he's working with the police now." With that, the history teacher led the way out onto the stage, Fenton and Joe following. The latter two sat in the empty chairs at the end of the row, while Mr. Cochran moved to the microphone in the center of the stage.

"Hello, students of the Harrison Boarding School!" he said with a large smile. A cheer erupted around the auditorium. "How are you all doing today? I've brought you here to give you an update about the school and to quiet several rumors that have been going around the school by bringing you the truth."

"As most of you seem to know, our current dean, Suzanne King, has been placed on paid administrative leave. There is an internal investigation being conducted following allegations of discrimination." An awkward cheer went up, which was quickly silenced by several hushes around the room. "Now, the second rumor I wish to address is that of Mr. Hardy and Ms. Drew's identities. Some have been saying that they are actually here after being hired by Dean King to do some snooping into the recent issues that we've had here on campus. I can confirm this as well, which leads me into my third point. Last night the police were called to campus after an incident. We can now confirm that the homicide of Sergio Chandler occurred sometime yesterday."

At this new piece of information the crowd broke into a cacophony. Lots of whispered conversations burst out all at once throughout the entire seating area.

One kid that Joe didn't recognize stood up. "Well, it was probably Ryan, seeing as how he was always trying to steal Sergio's spotlight!"

"Are you kidding me!?" Luna bolted upright. "We were freaking trapped down there, about to die just like him!"

"So you admit that you and Ryan were where the body was found?" another student asked.

"They had Joe with them, too, and he's one of the good guys." That was Matt. Within a few seconds, the once-quiet auditorium had become a madhouse.

"SILENCE!" Everybody stopped fighting with their neighbor and stared up at Mr. Cochran, whose face was tinged pink. "If you would all so kindly take your seats, the father of Joe and Frank, Mr. Fenton Hardy, who happens to be quite renowned throughout New York, will outline what you will each need to do in order to aid the police as much as possible." Mr. Cochran turned and motioned to Joe's father, who stood and traded places with him.

"Thank you all for coming here on such short notice," Mr. Hardy began. "My name is Mr. Hardy, and I will be in charge of this case involving the unfortunate death of a student alongside the police in the area. Some of you may know my sons, Frank and Joe, and also their best friend, Nancy. The four of us and the police would like as little pushback as possible so we can get to the bottom of this case." He paused and took a swig from his water bottle. "Now, I would like to run a bit of a test here. We will be giving out $50 to each individual, teacher or student, who can give us information about Sergio within the last day or two. If you don't have information that can help us, you are free to leave the auditorium now."

A scattering of students and about half the teachers left, but the majority of the auditorium seats remained occupied, clearly interested in claiming the cash prize.

"Now, we have a suspect in custody. If any of you happen to have some information about a Jake Ramirez, please stand." A decent grouping of those remaining stood. "If you would so kindly join my son Frank backstage, he will take you to be interviewed." Once all those who weren't seated had filed out, Joe's father turned back to the audience, which was a third of what it had been before. "We believe that Sergio was killed this morning, early on. So if you saw anything between the hours of 12 A.M. and 4 A.M., please come up with Mr. Cochran, and he will show you to your destination." After a few more well-worded questions, a group of about half a dozen students, including Luna and Ryan, who were staring at Mr. Hardy as if he had two heads, stayed seated in the auditorium, with a couple staff members still present as well.

"Thank you all for being so patient," Mr. Hardy concluded. "We had to weed out those who didn't possess useful information from those who could give us potential new places to look. If you would please follow me, we'll get started soon."

At that point Frank had returned, and the two brothers watched as their father trekked off with the group of people. "I love to watch him work," Joe admitted.

"Totally," Frank agreed. "So where might Nancy be?"

"Well, she didn't take any of the groups, and she definitely wasn't in any of the groups, so she wasn't present in the auditorium," Joe reasoned.

"But why would she miss something as important as this?"

"No idea," Joe replied. "I tried texting her earlier, but I never got a reply back."

The two teens stood in a deep, thoughtful silence. "Maybe we can go borrow Ryan and Luna from Dad and ask if they know where she is," suggested Joe. "After all, it seems like Ryan and Nancy don't go anywhere at this point without knowing where the other is."

The brothers walked down the hall and opened the door with their father mid-sentence. "Ah, good, Frank and Joe, I could use your help right now."

"Hold on, Dad," Frank said. "Do you mind if we speak to you in private for a moment?" Mr. Hardy shrugged and motioned them into a small office hidden away behind the classroom. It was clearly already set up for the questioning of the witnesses.

"What do you boys need?" their father asked.

"I haven't been able to get ahold of Nancy all morning," Joe informed him. "She wasn't in the auditorium and it definitely isn't like her to skip an assembly as important as this."

"So you think Nancy might be missing?" Mr. Hardy sounded concerned.

"Yeah, it's a possibility," Frank said.

"We'd like to take Ryan and Luna with us to go looking for her," Joe told their father. "With four of us we can split up and cover more ground while still being in a less compromised situation in case anyone dangerous is out and about."

"It's fine with me," Fenton replied. "They've already given statements to the police which I have on hand, so I don't see any reason why they would need to stay."

"Thanks, dad." The two teens exited the back room behind their dad and motioned for Luna and Ryan to join them. When the four stepped outside the room, Frank and Joe filled them in on the situation.

"Yeah, I was wondering why she didn't text me back this morning," Ryan said. "How do we want to split?"

"Actually, here's an idea," Frank suggested. "When Nancy originally called me for us taking on this case, she mentioned a power outage and a rabbit that showed up in a locked room."

"Yep, both of those happened," Luna piped up.

"And how does that relate to finding Nancy?" Joe asked.

"It doesn't," Frank admitted, "but we've been focused so much on the recent incidents. The culprit has had time to touch up on his or her skills. If we go back to the earlier happenings, there's a chance that we could pick up on some clues."

"So split up and have one group look for Nancy and one group look into the past incidents?" Luna questioned.

"Yes," Frank replied. "Joe, you go with Luna to look for Nancy. Luna can get you into the dorm, which is probably a good place to start. Ryan, you can come with me. Which building was the one which lost power in the middle of the day?"

Luna and Joe trotted away from the other two as they went on the search for Nancy. "This campus has gone up in flames," Luna noted.

"Yeah, you ain't kidding," Joe replied. "I mean, the whole corruption scandal thing with the dean was pretty wacked out. Add a murder to that, and I'm impressed that Mr. Cochran has been able to handle everything."

"Well, he IS Mr. Cochran," Luna pointed out as the approached the girls dorm building. "Plus I'm pretty sure Mrs. Hyde and Mr. Tyler are doing well handling the staff politics and the crazy students. Most of what Mr. Cochran is up to is dealing with the Board of Trustees and all the legal matters."

"Having seen that field from the other side, it's a lot to deal with," Joe commented. The pair reached the front door to the dormitory, and Luna opened the door, allowing herself and Joe to pass through.

"I have Nancy's spare room key," Joe told Luna, holding it up. "We gave each other the spares after Frank left." Luna led the way to Nancy's door, and soon they were into Nancy's room.

"Lucky for us that her roommate isn't here."

"Agreed," Joe said. "It would've made things a lot more difficult to keep on the down low." The first red flag he saw was her phone sitting on the desk. "Uh-oh. That isn't good."

"What?" Luna asked.

Joe held up the device. "This never leaves Nancy's pocket, so if she doesn't have this, I have no clue as to why."

"I don't know," Luna admitted. "You know her better than I do. Would she have had any notes on the case somewhere?"

"Sure, but I doubt she would have kept anything from me. We keep a pretty transparent investigation with each other." Joe paused for a minute. "Hold up."

"What am I holding up for?"

Joe clicked Nancy's phone on. On the lock screen a single text message was shown, from a number not in Nancy's contacts. It read _911_.

"911?" Luna inquired, reading over Joe's shoulder. "What does that mean? And who is it from?"

Joe stared at the screen. Things were starting to click into place for him, but it wasn't time to let Luna in on his thinking just yet.

"I'm not sure," he lied, "but it may be something that Frank knows about. I'll call him and see what he comes back with."

Taking out his phone and handing Nancy's to Luna, he pulled up his brother's number. After two rings, Frank answered.

"Hello?"

"Yo, Frank, Nancy's phone got a 911 text to it. Do you know what that could possibly mean?" He was hoping his brother would take a hint.

"Hm, not ringing any bells." Joe let out an inward sigh of relief. He could tell that his brother was concerned, but he knew what to do.

"Okay, there isn't anything here other than that from what we've seen," the blond told his older brother. "Do you want to meet up somewhere?"

"We're over in the administrative building, and we've found out some... interesting things," Frank informed Joe. "See you in the library in 10?"

"Sounds like a plan," Joe replied, ending the call. "Let's head over to the library, Luna."

The four teens met up a few minutes later. The library only contained a scattering of students around since many were taking advantage of their day off.

"So what did you find?" Luna asked as they sat down with Frank and Ryan.

"Well, we didn't find anything here about the power outage," Ryan admitted. "But when we were over in the Kellogg building, where the rabbit showed up, saw something interesting."

"It seems that we figured out how our perp got into the locked room," Frank explained. He slid a key in a ziploc onto the table. "This was found underneath a cabinet in the room. And the teacher showed us that he had his. My guess is that the culprit used this to get into the room."

"Are there any extra keys?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, and when the teacher checked in his drawer, it was gone," Ryan added.

"Fortunately he remembered the day that he forgot to lock his room," Frank said. "Since he is the boys soccer coach, he had to leave early, but forgot to grab his playbook. So he went back to get it, realized while at the game that he had left his room unlocked, and went back to lock it after they had returned from the game."

"So we have the time when someone might have slipped in there. Nice," Joe commented. "We'll have to see if the dean's film from the cameras extends all the way back to that day."

"Yep," Frank replied. "But first," he turned to Luna and Ryan, "I think Joe and I are going to go check in with our dad to see if he has come up with anything useful on our most recent incident."

"Alright, we're probably stick around here." Luna and Ryan bid the brothers goodbye, and the Hardy boys left the library.

"So what do you think of–" Joe started to say, but he was cut off by Frank.

"Let's wait til we're in private with dad," he instructed his younger brother. They walked across campus into the performing arts center, making their way to where he was doing interviews. When they arrived, Fenton was just dismissing his last witness.

"Well, that was a whole lot of nothing," he lamented to his sons. "Tell me you figured out more than I did."

"We didn't, but we think there's a possibility that Nancy did."

Their father's face brightened. "Oh, good, so you found her?"

"Not quite," Joe told him. He pulled out Nancy's phone. "Nancy got a 911 text to her phone. It's the code that we all use when there is imminent danger. But it went to her phone, from an unknown number."

"Well, I can see if I can track that number down," Mr. Hardy said. "Do you think she's in trouble?"

"Well, that was what I was thinking," Joe stated.

"I was too, at first," Frank spoke up. "But something isn't lining up. For one thing, why wouldn't she have her phone? Why would it be sitting on her desk? No one except Joe and her roommate has the key to her room. What if Nancy left it there for us to find and used someone else's phone to send us a message, that something bad is about to happen. I just don't know why she wouldn't just come to us if that was the case, though."

"Oh!" Joe exclaimed. "My text messages from this morning should've shown up! But they didn't. Someone must've have opened her phone to check them, but no one else would have her password except her."

"That's an interesting proposition," Mr. Hardy said. They walked out of the room and he looked at Nancy's phone. "Let me write down this number real quick. Here, read it to me as I write it, Frank."

The dark-haired teen did so, and Fenton entered the number into his phone.

"Yo, why do you have Natalie's number?" The Hardys looked up at the teen who had just been interviewed by Mr. Hardy.

"That number belongs to a Natalie?" Fenton asked with interest.

"Yeah. Natalie McClain." (2820, 30,295)

And the plot thickens! What is Nancy up to? What role does Natalie play? And can the video cameras help to solve the case? I'm pretty sure you got more questions than answers in this chapter. Prepare for two more chapters as the whirlwind adventure wraps up. I would also like to thank you as a reader, old and new, for reading/coming back to read my story. I searched so hard for the time before to continue this but it just didn't exist. See you next chapter.


	14. A Rescue

**DISCLAIMER** : None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note** : I again apologize for my busy schedule making it difficult to get much writing in at all, but I hope the long wait is worth it. At this point it may be hard to rely on me to post consistently (life gets in the way sometimes), but the plan is to post the final chapter on May 19th, exactly one year after the story's first chapter was originally posted. (I'm just a sucker for symbolic things like that.) Here is the penultimate chapter, Chapter 14.

"Wake up! Nancy Drew! Get up!"

The titian-haired detective groaned, feeling the pounding in her head as if someone was trying to knock a hole in her skull with a hammer from inside.

Opening her eyes didn't help. When she did, she was faced with a flashlight shining in her face.

"Ugh. What do you want?" Nancy asked, before realizing that she wasn't tied up.

"I'm breaking you out!" The person holding the flashlight whispered to her. "Now let's hurry up, before she gets back."

"She?" Nancy questioned, before being dragged to her feet. "Oof!"

"Sorry, but we really don't have time to chit-chat." Nancy's rescuer turned her on her heel and pushed her to start walking.

"I can't see where I'm going!" Nancy protested. "Your flashlight blinded me."

"Look up ahead." The shadowy figure pointed the light toward the wall, where it illuminated a door. Squinting, Nancy could make out various pieces of exercise equipment lining the wall around the door. She took a few steps forward, but before she could open the door, her rescuer stopped her.

"Wait!" the person hissed. "I have to make sure the coast is clear." A hand reached around Nancy and opened the door a crack. Through the sliver the detective could see a dimly-lit hallway. She also didn't fail to notice that her rescuer's nails were painted red. Where had she seen that before?

"We should be all set. Let's get out of here." The door opened all the way and Nancy was shoved out into the hallway and recognized it as the one that led to the locker rooms in the sports facility. She turned to see Natalie follow her out through the door.

"Natalie? What are you doing? And why was I in there?" Nancy questioned the girl.

"I think I know who your saboteur is." Natalie tucked her hair behind her ear. "That place where Sergio was found? That was a storage space for some of Louise's drugs." Natalie teared up when discussing her ex-boyfriend. "I was hiding him on campus in my room, but I didn't expect him to be dumb enough to go outside, even if it was during the night."

"So how does this connect to Louise being the saboteur?" Nancy asked. She wasn't quite sure where the connection was.

"She has a big drug sale going down today off campus somewhere," Natalie explained. "I tried to figure out where, but she kept it quiet. I saw her coming out of here earlier so I checked it out after the fact and found you in here. I think she figured you were too close to figuring out what was going on, and tried to incapacitate you for long enough to pull off the sale without you interfering."

There was definite motive, but Nancy wasn't sure if she was willing to accept everything Natalie said quite yet, even if she had seemingly rescued Nancy.

Suddenly the door to the hallway from the girls locker room swung open. Natalie and Nancy began to book it down the hallway, the latter keeping her hand on Natalie's arm to make sure she didn't fall.

"Hey! Why are you girls running?" The two stopped and turned when they realized the voice didn't belong to Louise. Coach Krista was standing with her hands on her hips. "What did you just do that I should know about?"

"Nothing!" Nancy assured her. "We just have somewhere that we need to be." The two teens turned and continued to make their way out of the facility at a slower pace than before. Once they got outside, Natalie handed Nancy's phone to her companion.

"Here, I found this in Louise's room. It's the only reason I thought there might be more to Louise sneaking into the closet than just her scoping out a new place to stash some stuff." Nancy turned it on to see several messages from Joe. Clearly they would be worried that she hadn't responded back. She was about to text him when she thought about her situation from another perspective.

"Natalie, we're going to do something that's going to seem a little weird, but I promise that if you go with me on everything then everyone except maybe Louise will benefit." Natalie nodded with a cocked eyebrow. "Good," Nancy said. "Right now if Joe thinks that I'm missing, there will be plenty of other people who will be aware of the same fact, including many of the suspects. I'm not sold on your theory about Louise being the saboteur, since as far as we know she doesn't have means or opportunity. Right now I hold the ultimate trump card because I have the element of surprise. Everyone thinks I'm missing and not doing anything, but we can be doing detective work along the way."

"So we go under the radar to look for clues?" Natalie shrugged. "You're the expert here."

Nancy had to figure out a good starting point. "At this point we're running a bit low on suspects. With Phil in the hospital and Sergio, well, gone, we're already down two potential saboteurs. It only leaves us with a few options."

"I'm obviously one," Natalie said, much to Nancy's surprise. "What? I know nothing's happened to clear myself from that particular suspect list. For all you know, I'm a sympathetic saboteur who felt bad about you being locked in a gym closet."

Nancy had to laugh at that one. "Alright, yes, you're on the suspect list." She stopped for a second in order to let her brain process everything. Where should she begin?

"Natalie, do you have your license?" Nancy asked. The girl nodded. "Good, because we're going to need to do some traveling. But first, we have to stop by your room and Joe's room. Hopefully he isn't there, because that would be awkward."

"What are you thinking about?" Natalie asked the detective as they walked.

"I'm thinking we need to go make a drug bust," Nancy proclaimed. "We need to figure out where Louise is making the sale, then I need to grab one thing from Ryan's place before we head out."

With a fast walking pace it only took the girls a few minutes to reach the dorm despite the circuitous route they took to remain mostly hidden from passersby. They entered the room and instantly Nancy's mind thought back to her hiding under the bed while Sergio sat atop it.

"So what exactly are we looking for?"

"Anything that can clue us in as to where Louise was planning on going today," Nancy replied. "An address, a name, maybe even a phone number that you don't recognize."

Despite searching all the makeup containers, the mirror, the desks, and the mattresses, nothing turned up in the girls' search.

"Well, I don't know if we'll be finding anything in here," Nancy admitted. "Louise covered her tracks pretty well."

"Not as well as she might think." Natalie took a seat on her bed next to Nancy. "Clearly she doesn't expect me to come looking for her. Or anyone, for that matter." She showed Nancy a picture on her phone that Louise had just posted to FaceBook. In the picture the corner of a popular restaurant in the downtown area could be seen. "It looks like someone is getting lunch. And given the fact that the one thing she did mention to me was that it would all go down in the afternoon, I'd say she hasn't made the sale yet."

"Alright, then let's go!" Natalie pulled out her keys, but Nancy turned the other way when exiting the room. "Where are you going?"

"I need to go grab something from Ryan's room, remember?" Nancy reminded the senior.

"What is it?" Natalie asked as she followed Nancy out of the building toward the boys dorm room.

"I know that Joe stayed with Ryan last night," Nancy told her. "Knowing him, he would've brought some of his detective gear to the room given the incident yesterday."

"So what is it you're looking for, exactly?"

"Last year Joe bought a really good infrared and UV camera last year," Nancy explained. "Since we don't know where the deal will be going down, it will be good to be prepared in case it's dark or something else prevents us from being able to see them."

Natalie pointed toward the middle of campus and shoved Nancy further into the trees. Nancy followed the finger down to where she could see the Hardy boys along with Ryan and Luna exiting the auditorium.

"Well, I'm glad Frank arrived at least," she muttered. When the coast was clear, they skipped back out into the sun and quickly got themselves into the boy's dorm building.

After a few minutes of searching all of Joe's normal hiding places, Nancy concluded that the kit wasn't in the room.

"Well, where else would it be?" Natalie questioned her.

Nancy stood deep in thought for a minute. Why wouldn't it be in Joe's room?

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "Joe likes to have it in his room in case anything unexpectedly. But he didn't stay here last night; he stayed in Ryan's room!" She flung the door open and ran to Ryan's room, using the spare key he had given her to open the door. Natalie followed close behind.

"So how do we find it if Joe wouldn't put it in a 'usual' spot?" Natalie asked the detective.

"I have no clue where it would be," Nancy admitted. "Joe would've wanted to keep it from prying eyes, though. He doesn't like it when anyone other than Frank or I get into it to use something."

Natalie just looked at her. "I feel like me going through your partner's OR your boyfriend's stuff isn't really a great idea. I'll leave it to you."

Nancy smiled, and looked under Phil's bed. Nothing was there, so she turned to look under Ryan's. What she saw made her blood run cold. She reached all the way to the back corner and pulled out a large pot.

"So apparently Ryan has a thing for pots?" Natalie joked. Nancy wasn't laughing. The pot was the exact one that was stolen from in front of the library following Frank's accident. For the first time, her sleuth sense was blaring about Ryan. But instead of exonerating him, it was incriminating him.

"You know what, change of plans," she said abruptly. Tucking the pot back into where she had grabbed it from, Nancy stood back up and dusted herself off. "We'll find the camera later." She was beating herself up inside, knowing that she should've listened to Joe and not become involved with a suspect.

Joe was with the suspect.

Nancy's heart dropped in her chest. If Frank and Joe were working with the culprit, then they were in deep trouble. After all, she had exonerated him for the group. Now his alibi didn't hold up. How could she communicate with them while still remaining undercover?

"Nancy, what's this?" The titian-haired girl turned to see Natalie holding a note. "Is it just me, or does this put up literally all the red flags?"

Nancy snatched the note from her. It didn't appear to be in either Ryan or Phil's handwriting, so she wondered who had written it. _Glass is a go. Make it look like Maria's the target._

"This must be talking about Phil's accident!" Nancy exclaimed. A bitter taste filled her mouth. Not only was Ryan guilty, but he was working with someone, too. If it was Luna, the Hardy Boys were in even more trouble than she had originally thought.

"Well, you've pegged him from the start." Natalie told her.

"Huh?"

"When we found out that you were detectives, I figured right there that Ryan was your number one suspect." Natalie shrugged. "You're dating him to get the information you need right?"

"Yeah, definitely," Nancy said with no heart in it. She got out her phone to text Joe, but then stopped herself again.

"Why aren't you texting him?" Natalie inquired.

"If they think I'm missing, chances are Ryan and whoever he's working with also think that is the case. I don't want to give it away to them that I'm okay." Suddenly Nancy was struck with an idea. "We need to get back to my room."

"Why?" Natalie asked, but her companion was already zipping down the hall and out the door. Nancy had a good head start on Natalie, and the latter didn't catch the junior until they reached the dorms.

Upon entering her room, Nancy ran right into her roommate. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be missing or something?"

"Yeah, I am," Nancy told her. "So you never saw me here, okay?" Her roomie shrugged, and left the room.

"Alright, I need your phone Natalie." Leaving her own on the desk, Nancy took the other girl's phone, plugged in her number, and sent a simple text.

"911? Girl, do you want to get me in the loop or something so I can stop asking questions?"

Nancy handed Natalie her phone again and they fled to Natalie's car. "Now let's sit and watch." After a few minutes, Joe and Luna showed up and entered the dorm building. "We're good. Let's go stop a drug bust." (2215, 32,510)

Only one chapter left, and it'll be a good one! It has already been started (I made sure to get a head start before posting this) and everything will come to a close. I plan on moving heaven and earth and whatever else needs moving to get this story finished on the 19th of May, so I hope that you come back for the grand finale! :)


	15. A Criminal

**DISCLAIMER** : None of the Hardy Family, Drew Household, or any other characters featured in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books belong to me. All those featured at the boarding school with the exception of Frank, Joe, and Nancy are my own creation.

 **Author's Note** : Wow. It's crazy that one year ago I decided to embark on this endeavor with all of you, and I thank all of you deeply who have stuck around from the beginning, as well as everyone who has joined along the way. This one is a long chapter (since I combined the last two into one) which is jam-packed as Nancy, the Hardy Boys, and Mr. Hardy work to bring the culprits to justice. You can also find an epilogue detailing the following year for each of the characters that played a major role during the story, as well as a sneak peek at a section from my next story that will be coming in about a month. So dive into the final section of this story, Chapter 15.

"So Nancy has Natalie's phone?" Joe was confused, and he could see by the looks on the faces of the others that they were as well.

"Let's step back in to discuss this in private." Mr. Hardy led the way into the room they had just left. Once he closed the door, he said, "So we think Nancy is okay then? And with Natalie?"

"It certainly looks that way," Joe agreed. "Even if Natalie was texting Nancy, how would she know about the code?"

"Nancy is up to something," Frank interjected. "There would have to be a very specific reason for her to not just come up to us and tell her what's going on." He paused. "What if we text her back from Nancy's phone?"

"Or better yet, call her," Fenton suggested. "That way if she really does have Natalie's phone, she'll know it's really us getting in touch with her, rather than her roommate or someone like that."

After a few rings, the call connected. "Hello?" It was Natalie, not Nancy.

"Hi Natalie, it's Fenton Hardy," the boys' father said. "I'm here with Frank and Joe, and we're wondering if you've seen Nancy recently. We have reason to believe that she tried to contact us from your phone."

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. "Where did you say you were?" Natalie asked.

"The three of us are away from prying eyes and ears," Joe said.

"You've got the Hardy Special going in this room," Frank added.

Again, another long pause. "Hey Hardys," Nancy's voice said. All three breathed a sigh of relief.

"Nancy, what's going on?" Joe asked.

"I had to make sure it was just the three of you alone before I explained," Nancy informed them. "I have some details that you aren't going to like very much."

She explained about the kidnapping plot and drug sale planned by Louise, the pot found in Ryan's room, and the note that implied multiple culprits were behind the incident.

The Hardy trio let all the new information sink in a bit before responding. "Well, we're working with Ryan and Luna," Joe told her. "I think it would be a good idea to keep up the act until we can get some more concrete evidence."

Frank nodded. "Since it appears that the attacks have been geared toward Phil, we need his motive, or perhaps whoever he is working with."

"It may be easier to get him to talk instead of his partner," Nancy contended. "The note made it sound as if the other person was calling the shots, which would probably give us a better shot with Ryan."

"That makes sense," Fenton interjected. He had been texting on his phone, but he pocketed the device. "Nancy, while I appreciate you trying to stop the drug exchange from going down, it's not safe for you and Natalie, even with the experience you have. I've contacted the local authorities and I'll have some plainclothesmen at the scene. We could use you here more than ever before."

There was an audible sigh at the other end. "I suppose I'll wait for drug busts until later in my career. But I'd like Natalie and myself to stay in the area in case we're needed. Plus if Ryan still thinks I'm missing, I'd like to think that he would be concerned about my whereabouts. After all, he wasn't even the person who kidnapped me, so he's in the dark the same amount you guys were until I called."

"I can agree to that," Mr. Hardy relented. "Just remember that you need to stay out of sight, since Louise thinks you're locked up."

"Can do. Now what's the ETA on those plainclothesmen, and what will they be wearing?" Nancy and Mr. Hardy discussed the details, then ended the call.

Joe was internally chewing himself out. While he had warned Nancy against getting involved with a suspect, it was more of a formality than anything. He hadn't actually considered Ryan much of a suspect. A chill shot down his spine when he remembered the fact that Ryan and Luna had been locked with him in a room with a dead body. Not a fun thought.

"So do we play hardball with Ryan, or do we stay silent and look for him to slip up?" Frank asked no one in particular.

"I'd say we hold our cards close until we can definitely pin it on him," Fenton suggested. "No motive yet means that we can't book him. What we have is purely circumstantial, no matter how damning it is."

A knock came at the door. The Hardys exchanged a glance around the desk, before Frank moved to admit whoever was waiting outside. It was Ryan and Luna.

"Hey guys, any word on Nancy?" Joe had to hand it to him, Ryan was a good actor. He made a mental note to see if he had ever had any experience on the stage.

"Not yet," Mr. Hardy replied, "and we should make finding her a priority. Frank," he addressed his son, "can go with you two to find out what clues there might be."

"After some discussion, we were thinking it would be best to start where she might not be noticed," Frank added, "and this building is definitely the biggest on campus. If someone got to her, I'm sure there would be some nook or cranny here in the auditorium or the surrounding rooms and halls where she could be hidden."

"I like the thought process," Luna concluded. "Let's get to searching!" The trio exited, leaving just Joe with his father.

"So what do we want our real move to be here?" Mr. Hardy inquired of his son.

Joe thought about it for a couple minutes. "With the attacks geared toward Phil, maybe we're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. We've been trying to figure out why Ryan is after Phil, but maybe it would make sense to work backward, to find what happened with Phil to make his best friend turn on him."

"Well, it sounds like you've got some work to do," his father said. "I'm going to coordinate with Nancy and the plainclothesmen to make sure that Louise gets busted, but I'll be back on the trail as soon as that is done." With that, Joe departed from the room. He juggled two locations in his mind, finally deciding to go where Phil's real home was, rather than just his bed: the field house.

Upon his arrival he bumped into the soccer coach, who was heading out the front door with some paperwork. "Oh, Coach Gilgan, I have a quick question." Joe skidded to a stop next to the coach.

"Yeah, what's up?" he asked.

"Do you know Phil's roommate, Ryan, at all?"

Coach Gilgan nodded vigorously. "Of course I know Ryan. He's in one of my classes this year."

Joe filed away the fact that Ryan had access to the classroom where the rabbit had appeared mysteriously. "How would you categorize his relationship with Phil?"

"They're definitely good friends," the coach replied. "Ryan and Phil's dad are the two regulars at our games no matter how far away we go, so long as Ryan's schedule permits. Though," he added hastily, "I'm not comparing him to Phil's father. After all, Phil Grady, Sr. missed a game. See? No connection."

Joe rolled his eyes. He could only imagine the grief that the coach got from Sr. whenever he benched Phil so he could get a breather.

"Anything else I can do for you?" Joe was brought back down to earth. He shook his head.

"Nope, that was all," he said, letting the coach pass. Walking into the complex, he decided to pay a visit to Coach Krista, since she was possibly the closest adult to Phil.

"Hey Coach." He walked in and leaned against the doorway since the small office didn't have space for a visitor's chair.

"Hi Joe," Krista replied without looking up as she filled out some paperwork. "You'd think that they wouldn't pass off insurance matters to an assistant coach, but hey, that's the life I guess." She finished the portion that she was on and looked up. "Oh, did you know that the other detective was here a bit earlier? I heard that she was missing."

Joe laughed. "Yeah, we got all that figured out. But that isn't why I'm here." He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him.

"Uh-oh, this can't be good," Krista joked as the latch clicked. "You _are_ one of the good guys, right?"

"Of course," Joe replied. "Listen, we're looking into any reason why Ryan might have a bone to pick with Phil."

Krista raised one eyebrow. "Ryan's your prime suspect? You'd better have solid proof if you want to make that accusation. You should know, since you spend all your time with them or the Drew girl."

"We have some pretty good evidence that he's involved, but that he's involved with someone else," Joe explained. "We don't know who his partner is, but we figured if we could catch Ryan, we can get him to rat out who his accomplice is."

Krista had been sitting back in her chair, but she bolted upright. "Tell me, on one of those crime shows they have, I heard that the three main reasons people commit crimes are for money, love, or revenge. Would you call this a fairly accurate statement?"

Joe shrugged. "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be correct. It's a pretty broad idea, but it covers most of the bases."

Krista leaned forward over her desk. "Who's your favorite coach?"

It was Joe's turn to cock an eyebrow. "You?"

Krista laughed. "Oh come on, you could at least say it with a bit of conviction, considering the information I could give you."

Joe smirked. "Or I could just have you arrested for aiding a criminal, or impeding an investigation," he responded in a light-hearted tone. His retort made Krista smile.

"Touché," she replied. She picked up the paperwork she had been filling out. "This right here is an insurance policy for Phil Grady, Jr. I wouldn't have thought anything about it, except," she said as she flipped to the page she was looking for, "that it was taken out just two days before the chandelier almost fell on him. And then," she continued flipping through the packet, "it was restructured four days prior to Phil being hospitalized."

Joe's curiosity was piqued. "So how would this be an aid to Ryan? He wouldn't have any say over it."

Krista shook her head. "It wouldn't aid him. But the person that it would aid would be Phil Grady, Sr."

"So you think that Phil's father is the one working with Ryan?" Joe was incredulous. Sure, it would explain the note being in a different handwriting than any of the students they knew, but why would he work with his son's best friend?

"Not quite," Krista said with a slight grimace. "I have motive for a different suspect other than those two that would make all of this a bit more logical. Again, circumstantial unless you can get a confession."

Krista explained her thought process. By the end of it, Joe wished that there was a chair he could sit in.

"So you're absolutely sure about this?"

Krista nodded. "I think it makes a bit more sense than what you had come up with, if we're being honest here."

"Alright, I'll look into the possibility," Joe said. "Thanks Coach, you've been a huge help in this case."

"Hey, it isn't everyday you get to help solve a real-life crime," she answered. "Let me know how it all turns out."

Joe thanked her again before he hurried back to home base, where he walked in on his father hanging up the phone.

"Joe! Good to see you," Mr. Hardy greeted him. "It sounds like the drug bust was a complete success, and Nancy is on her way back with Natalie. Any progress on Ryan?"

Joe shook his head. "I got the chance to talk with Coach Krista, since she and Phil seem to have a close relationship." He took a deep breath. "She and I think that there's a chance that this duo causing all the trouble isn't Ryan and someone else, but rather Phil and his father."

Fenton's eyebrows shot up in shock. "Really? You think he targeted himself? As a blooming athlete that seems a bit far-fetched."

Joe shook his head. "Tell Nancy to meet me at the hospital. I have a couple questions for Phil that might clear this up."

A little while later Joe pulled into the hospital parking lot. With him was Mr. Cochran, who was recommended as a chaperone by Joe's father.

"Nancy!" Joe embraced his friend, glad that she had made it back okay. "You ready for this?"

Nancy grimaced. "Not really, but if Phil is really the one behind it, Ryan's name is cleared, so I guess there's a positive in this situation."

"Yeah, but if it really is Jr. and Sr. behind it all, arresting the old man will be way more pleasurable," Joe added with a grimace.

The two detectives, followed by Mr. Cochran and Natalie, entered the hospital. Nancy walked up to the nurse that was at the desk. "Hi, we're here to visit Phil Grady, Jr. on police business." The nurse looked skeptically at her.

"Well, even if I believed your rag-tag team was actually here for the police, you can't visit Mr. Grady. He was discharged from the hospital not even an hour ago."

All four were shocked to hear the news. "Who was the person who got him out?" Mr. Cochran asked.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to divulge that information." Joe pulled Nancy aside while Mr. Cochran and Natalie continued to argue with the nurse.

"Only Phil's father would've been able to discharge him so fast," he said. "Unless Phil had recovered from his injury at an extremely opportune time?"

"If you mean that he faked it, that wouldn't be possible with the doctors doing their work," Nancy countered. "But if he was taken by his father, clearly they're onto us. How did they figure it out? I mean, we've known for less than an hour."

Joe thought for a second. "Either he's super paranoid, or something else tipped him off that we were getting close." Suddenly an idea struck him. "You know what? We haven't talked to Frank in a while. For all we know, he still thinks Ryan is the culprit."

"Why aren't you in contact with him?"

Joe shrugged. "He was off leading Ryan and Luna on a wild-goose chase so I could get down to the real detective work while Dad was coordinating with you. Unless Dad reached out to him after I left, I don't think Frank knows about the new developments." The teen pulled out his phone and called his brother, but got no response back. "That's weird. I wonder what Frank's up to right now."

Frank followed in the wake of Ryan and Luna as they departed from the "home base" for the mystery. "Well, you guys are walking with purpose. Do you actually have any idea where you're going?" This caused both of them to stop, allowing Frank to catch up.

Luna shrugged. "We have no clue." Without skipping a beat, she continued, "What was up with that super-secret meeting?"

Frank weighed his words as heavily as he could with the milliseconds he had to make a choice. "I'll be frank with you –"

"Well if you were Joe, we'd have an identity crisis on our hands," Luna interjected. Frank couldn't help but laugh.

"Whether I'm Frank or Joe," he said, "you guys are still considered 'suspects,' even just in an official manner. Plus, Nancy and Joe trust you guys, but I haven't really worked with you guys a lot." He flashed a sheepish smile.

Ryan smiled back. "Hey, it's fine. You didn't get to know us at all since you were gone almost as soon as you came. So where do you think we should look for Nancy?"

Frank thought about what a logical place might be that he knew Joe would stay away from while pursuing the Ryan lead. "Do you guys mind if we go to the crime scene from last night, since the police are done processing the crime scene?" He could see that Luna instantly looked uncomfortable.

"I'm down," Ryan said. Luna just shook her head.

"I'd prefer not to, but I do think it's important to look there," she told Frank. "Maybe you guys can go check that out and I can try somewhere else?"

While Frank wasn't thrilled with the idea of Luna going off by herself with the unidentified helper working with Ryan, he knew that it was him rather than her that needed to have eyes on him at all times at this point. "Yeah, that could work. Did you and Joe finish looking through Nancy's room?" Luna shook her head again. "That would be a good place to snoop around then." The girl nodded and set off in the direction of the women's dorm.

"Alright, let's go explore that basement." Ryan led the way since Frank hadn't previously been to the scene of the crime. When they reached the backside of the Harding Science Center, they both laughed at the classic 'Floor Wet' sign janitors use placed outside the cellar door. They opened the door and descended into the cellar and walked in to hear someone shuffling around. They exchanged a glance: While Ryan assumed it was Nancy, Frank was nervous about who might be present at a crime scene just minutes after the police had cleaned up and left.

"Nancy? Is that you?" Frank did an internal facepalm. He did a quick check around him to see if anything was in range to use as a weapon just in case, but nothing stuck out to him.

"No. No it's not." Frank's eyes widened as Phil Grady, Sr. walked around the corner, toting a small handgun pointed in the direction of the two teen boys. "Why are you two here? Had I been left in peace then we wouldn't have this little problem." He sneered. "But I've already killed one problem child, so two more wouldn't really be an issue, would it?"

Frank's mind was racing, but with his head pounding due to the concussion, he was having trouble processing everything. "Wait, you were the one who killed Sergio?"

"Well, he was snooping around where he shouldn't have been, same as you two," Mr. Grady replied. "I knew that one of those girls uses this place as a storage area for her drug shipments, so I decided to use this as a headquarters of sorts." He held up a dead rabbit and a syringe with his free hand. "After all, if any of this was found hidden in the wall, it wouldn't be pinned on me or my son. All signs would point to the culprit being the druggie, and I would walk free. Plus," he added, "I achieved my goal anyway."

Dropping the hare and the needle on the floor, Phil Grady, Sr. reached for something else while keeping the gun pointed at Frank and Ryan. When his hand came back into view, he had some large rope.

"You can't expect to be a criminal mastermind and not carry some rope with you in case you're discovered, can you?" The older man cackled. Frank was pretty sure that he didn't necessarily fit the profile of a 'criminal mastermind.' More like a criminal psycho.

"But why did you do all this?" Frank asked him. "What did you have to gain from injuring your own son, and why did he go along with it?"

"For the money, of course!" Mr. Grady snorted. "I thought my son was a disappointment for wanting to quit sports. Still do! But he really wanted to stop, so we agreed that we'd make it work in our favor by changing the insurance policy."

Frank's head was spinning as he tried to make sense of it all. "Then I understand why you would try to scare Joe away with the hare's blood, and hurt Phil, crazy as it may be. But why the dead rabbit in the classroom, and the power outage?"

"I needed to establish an identity before we started targeting my son." Phil Grady, Sr. beckoned for the two to come closer, before handing some of the rope off to Ryan. "Here. Tie up your friend." Once it was done, Mr. Grady shoved Frank to the floor. When he hit the ground, stars clouded his vision. He was fairly certain his doctor would have a heart attack when Frank informed him of everything that he had done. He wasn't sure if there was anything left on the 'Do Not Do' list given to him that he had yet to achieve. Frank heard someone else hit the ground next to him.

"I have to go somewhere, but I'll be back soon, boys. Don't move a muscle," Phil's father warned them. Hearing the stairs creak and the door swing open and shut, Frank knew that he had to do something, but his head was pounding too much to think through anything. He heard some rustling to his side, followed by a quick cheer.

"What?" He asked groggily.

He felt someone start to tug at his tied hands. "I managed to get my hands free," Ryan told him. He finally tugged Frank's restraints off, helping him up off the floor.

"How did you get the rope off?"

Ryan laughed. "A trick Nancy mentioned to me once. Apparently Phil's dad wasn't smart enough to make sure that my wrists were tightly together." Once the detective had regained his balance, the duo felt their way through the darkness but couldn't find the door.

A loud bang announced the return of someone to the cellar. Ryan put a finger to his lip before pushing Frank around the side of the boiler, so that he was hidden in the shadows made by the small amount of light from the door that led to the room they were in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" Frank heard Mr. Grady yell. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, pressing the emergency button when it came up. Dialing 911, he put the phone on the ground, screen face-down.

"Dad, calm down, it's just Ryan." Frank cocked an eyebrow. Apparently Mr. Grady had left to go fetch his son from the hospital. He knew that an escape was imminent.

"Where's the other boy now?" Mr. Grady again.

Ryan took a step back so that Frank could see him. "He's already gone, and he'll have the police here soon enough."

"That was a big mistake, mister." A shot rang out, and Frank watched Ryan fall to the ground in a heap.

"Dad! What are you doing!?"

"Cleaning up the loose ends! Now let's go. When another dead body is discovered down here the cops will be on us in an instant since that other kid is out and about."

Frank watched as Phil came into view, hobbling over to his friend laying on the ground. He turned back in the direction of his father's voice. "You didn't need to kill anyone over this. We could've just taken the money and gone with it, Sergio and Ryan would be okay, and nobody would have been the wiser."

Frank glanced at his phone sitting near his arm. Flipping it up briefly, he could see that the call was still going strong. While the 911 operator would have no idea what was happening, the shot should've come through loud and clear. If they had determined his location, someone would be arriving soon to rescue Frank and Ryan, if he was still alive.

As if on cue, the door slammed open. "Frank? Are you down here?" He groaned mentally. It was Nancy, and if she wasn't with the police, she would be in for a rude surprise.

"This is where Luna said he and Ryan were headed." Frank let out a slight sigh. His father was with her. Should he try to make a move against the culprits in his weakened state? While he could bring the element of surprise, he would be easily overpowered by Phil Jr. despite his foot injuries, and that would give them a hostage.

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw the solution. Slipping silently through the open doorway that led up to the janitor's closet was Joe, who looked about ready to pounce.

"Hands up, you fools!" Phil Grady, Sr. said gruffly. "How many people am I going to have to kill to get away with this all?"

"Whoa now, Mr. Grady. There's no need to get trigger-happy," Frank heard his dad reply. In that instant, Joe hurdled over Ryan in the direction of everyone else's voices.

"Agh! Get off me!" Frank heard another loud bang, followed by the sound of something clattering on the floor.

"Nice work, Joe," Fenton said. Hearing those words, Frank let out a rather weak cry. Around the corner came the younger Hardy boy.

"Frank! You're alright!" Joe hugged his brother. "How are you?"

"My head hurts so much," Frank confessed. "Did you get them?"

Joe nodded. "We got them. Now you just rest here, we've heard that a 911 call came in from this building and that a gunshot was heard. I'm assuming that was Ryan?"

"Will he be okay?"

"He's alive, but it'll be up to the paramedics to keep him that way." Joe wasn't sure exactly what the state of Ryan's injury was, but he was hoping that if the teen was still breathing by this time, he would be okay once the paramedics arrived.

Less than a minute later the cops arrived to take the father and son away. They were followed by two ambulances, which released a swarm of paramedics into the basement where both Frank and Ryan lay. Despite Nancy's attempts, she and the Hardys were removed from the basement, and she wasn't allowed to check on Ryan once they brought him up on a stretcher to an ambulance.

"Well, talk about a day," Joe remarked.

"Mhm, you can say that again," Nancy agreed. "A drug bust, a shooting, an overnight murder, and two criminals being caught."

"I'd say the two of you have certainly made your mark on Maine, along with Frank's help," Mr. Hardy added.

"You know, Phil could've stopped me from getting to his father," Joe said after a couple minutes of silence while the group watched everyone running around, doing their own thing. "He definitely saw me coming from that other entrance."

Mr. Hardy shrugged. "Some people are criminals, and some people get dragged into doing the wrong thing with enough convincing by someone else. I take it that Phil Grady, Sr. is in the first group, but his son is not."

"Am I glad that we checked those security cameras in the gargoyles or what!" Nancy exclaimed. "Had we not seen that Mr. Grady was on campus then we wouldn't have been able to get the jump on him."

A few minutes later the paramedic came over to visit Nancy, Joe, and Mr. Hardy. "There's some good news and some bad news. It seems that Mr. Santiago will be fine; the bullet didn't hit any major veins or arteries."

Fenton was clearly concerned. "So what's the bad news?"

"It appears that Mr. Hardy has a concussion."

Joe sighed in relief. "He already had a concussion from a previous incident, so that isn't anything new."

The paramedic shook his head. "I mean that he has sustained another concussion. And if he was in the process of recovering from a previous one, then it will only make the recovery process for the injury longer and harder."

Nancy shrugged. "It sucks that he re-injured himself, but after the way the last couple of days have been, I think I'm okay with him slipping by with a concussion." Both Joe and Mr. Hardy nodded their agreement.

"Now, Ms. Drew, I believe Mr. Santiago was looking to speak with you?" The paramedic stated. "If you would like to ride over to the hospital with him, you will be allowed."

A big grin broke across Nancy's face. "You bet I do!" She followed the paramedic to the ambulance, leaving Joe and Mr. Hardy watching the chaotic scene of cops and hospital staff dwindle (4781, 37,291).

Phew! All done! Thank you for reading The Gargoyles of Harrison. I hope that you enjoyed the story (I certainly enjoyed creating it). If you did, feel free to let me know with a review or come check out my next story when the first chapter is released in a month. Thank you again for your support! :)


	16. An Epilogue

**Ms. Suzanne King-** Suzanne King was investigated by the state in order to determine whether she wrongly submitted test scores and changed answers. Before being found guilty, she was released by the school. Due to the disgrace and the high profile of the case due to the school being nationally recognized, she never obtained another job and was fined by the state, forcing to move up north and live in a small cabin.

 **Mr. Michael Tyler-** Michael Tyler stayed with the Harrison school for Luna and the other juniors, and left the school with them a year later. During his final year at the school he continued to be the collector of gossip and the secret keeper at the school. Directly before his retirement his students past and present set up a fund to buy him a one-way ticket to Bermuda. He now lives in the sunshine with not a care in the world.

 **Mr. Gordon Cochran-** Gordon Cochran was selected by a majority of the staff to succeed Suzanne King as Dean of Students. Due to his love of coaching football and baseball, however, he elected to not take the position. He is still teaching history at the Harrison Boarding School.

 **Mrs. Maria Hyde-** After Cochran refused the position of Dean, the staff chose Maria Hyde to take the position, which she accepted. She has reversed many policies set in place by Suzanne King that choked off the freedom of the students. She is now known as Maria or Dean Maria to the students and staff on campus and has raised the number of enrolled students to the numbers they were at before the pranks and crimes.

 **Krista Lanigan-** Krista Lanigan stayed as an assistant coach for track and field in the spring before taking on the position as assistant athletic trainer at the school. She currently is the head athletic trainer due to her predecessor moving to the college level, and has given up coaching for the time being to focus on her new full-time job.

 **Bryan Mathis-** Despite Sergio's demise, Bryan still felt that the school brought about bad memories, and decided to switch to the public school in the area. He graduated a year early and is currently on an expedition across Europe with his parents.

 **Matt Forbes-** Matt was scared at first that he would be kicked out of the school due to the enrollment numbers climbing, but was relieved to find out that he would be allowed to stay. As a junior he was elected president of the band and is looking to become a leader in the Harrison as a senior.

 **Louise Rivers-** Louise was charged with possession of drugs thanks to Natalie and Sergio, and was locked up following the drug bust led by Nancy and Natalie. She is currently still serving her prison sentence.

 **Natalie McClain-** Natalie took the death of Sergio rather hard, but used the incident as motivation to continue helping people in the future as she had done with Nancy in determining the accidents at the boarding school. She decided to take a gap year before going to college to take a cross-country trip with some other friends, and is planning to become a therapist in the future.

 **Luna Ellison-** Luna continued to work hard at mastering languages, using her natural gift to bring her total count of languages with fluency to five by the time she left graduated from Harrison. She has future plans to be a translator working in the government, thanks to her mastery of English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.

 **Phil Grady, Jr.-** Thanks to his confession, allowing Joe to stop his father from killing Nancy and Mr. Hardy, and the fact that he is a minor, Phil Grady, Jr. was let off with providing community service. He more than paid his price, however, since the therapy was only partially successful, allowing him to walk but with some pain. He regrets not being able to participate in athletics but has found a new competitive hobby in the world of golf.

 **Phil Grady, Sr.-** Senior did not get off as lightly as his son. Thanks to his attempt on Ryan's life as well as orchestrating the plan to make money illegally, he was charged with insurance fraud, kidnapping, and attempted murder. He is currently appealing the charges, but regardless, he will be sitting in prison for a long time.

 **Joe Hardy-** Joe Hardy returned to Bayport after he finished the semester at Harrison. He took the place of Phil on the 4x200 relay team for the championship meet, which placed third. He also medaled in the 55m hurdles. His improvements in both sports and academics put him near the top of his class and his team for his senior year. He has now graduated and is ready to move on to college.

 **Frank Hardy-** Frank Hardy fully recovered from his concussion and went on more daring (and not-so-daring) adventures with his brother over the summer before he headed off to college in Indiana. He currently is studying to become a forensic analyst, but is still unsure if he wants to work with police or by himself as a private detective like his father.

 **Ryan Santiago-** Ryan took the summer to recover from the problems he faced after getting shot, but made a full recovery. His parents originally refused to let him return, but a call from Dean Maria outlining the changes that would be made on campus convinced them. He is still dating Nancy, and both, having graduated, are ready to go to college. His college on the border of Pennsylvania and New York is less than an hour away from Nancy's college and less than two hours away from Mr. and Mrs. Hardy.

 **Nancy Drew-** Nancy made the tough decision between her friends in River Heights and Ryan, deciding to stay at the Harrison Boarding School for her senior year. She is planning on going to college in New York at the same school George Fayne elected to attend. The girls, along with the Hardy Boys and Ryan, have no idea what is in their future, for in the summer between their freshman and sophomore years, another adventure may pop up in one of the oddest places: Bayport.


End file.
